From hidden worlds to self-discovery: what awaits guests of the Open Lecture Hall "Inventing the Future: Geography"

A map of the world is not a static source of knowledge, but a living organism that changes before our eyes and serves as an important tool for designing the future. On 11 April, this idea will be explored by experts at the Open Lecture Hall "Inventing the Future: Geography" — an original project of the National Centre RUSSIA that emerged from the II International Symposium "Inventing the Future". The programme is structured around three main themes: "Geography of Travel", "Geography of Hidden Worlds" and "Climate and the Geography of Resources".

The session "Geography of Travel" will take place from 12:00 to 13:00. Its participants will discuss the evolution of geographical sciences — from the discovery of new territories to a tool for human self-discovery — and will attempt to predict which points on the map may become key catalysts for personal transformation in the near future. The experts in this block will be Fyodor Konyukhov, traveller and member of the Russian Geographical Society, and Viktor Lazic from Serbia, writer-traveller, founder and Director General of the Society for Culture, Art and International Cooperation "Adligat", and Director General of the Museum of the Book and Travel and the Museum of Serbian Literature.

As part of the block "Geography of Hidden Worlds", which will run from 13:30 to 14:30, experts will discuss the creation of infrastructure and models of life in space, as well as the careful and effective exploration and development of the unexplored areas of Earth. Guests of the session will include space engineer Marat Airapetyan — a member of a satellite development team, head of the Mars simulation mission control centre, author of the blog "Yura, we can do it!", and ambassador of Techprosvet on VKontakte — and Huadong Guo (China), Director General of the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS), Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The session "Climate and the Geography of Resources" will take place from 15:00 to 16:00 and will focus on the impact of climate change on natural zones, economies and lifestyles, as well as on the issue of access to key resources in different regions of the world. Participants in the discussion will include geographer and geoecologist Yaroslav Lebedev, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Environmental Management of the Institute of Ecology at RUDN University; Abdullah Al-Shehi (UAE), Director General of National Advisor Bureau Limited and founder of the UAE Iceberg Project; and international expert Bulat Yessekin (Kazakhstan), coordinator of the Central Asian Platform on Water Resources Management and Climate Change.

The programme of the Open Lecture Hall will conclude with the masterclass "Gastronomic Geography: Taste as a Tool for Exploring Space". The event will take place from 16:30 to 18:00 and will focus on gastronomy as a way of understanding space, nature and the cultural identity of territories. Using the example of the Russian Far East, Pavel Vasilyev, brand chef of the restaurants "Nashe Mesto Kamchatka" and "Le Dessert" (Vladivostok) and Vice-President of the Chefs Team Russia Association, will demonstrate how climate, natural landscape, local products and traditions shape the unique flavour map of a region.

The Open Lecture Hall "Inventing the Future: Geography" is part of the original project of the National Centre RUSSIA, which premiered on 7 February 2026. The first Lecture Hall was devoted to storytelling in advertising, cinema and video games.

The thematic direction "Inventing the Future: Geography" supports and develops the ideas of the exposition " Geography Lessons" and proposes a view of geographical sciences and travel as tools for self-discovery, for expanding the boundaries of human presence, and for the careful and thoughtful exploration of space.

Admission to the Open Lecture Hall events is free with prior registration on the website russia.ru. Details are available in the "Events" section.