OM at the Eastern Economic Forum – 2024
Another big project of ours, full of adventures, doubts, events, discoveries, and victories, has come to an end. Six months of work, flights, new acquaintance
s, shootings, reworkings, and searches have finally culminated in their Grand Finale. In the first working week of September, the Eastern Economic Forum – 2024 was held in Vladivostok. At the campus of the Far Eastern Federal University, leaders of major Russian and foreign companies, government representatives, leading economists, and experts gathered. The main theme of this year’s event was "Far East – 2030. Uniting Efforts to Create Opportunities." The forum was organized by the Roscongress Foundation.
On the embankment of Ajax Bay, within the framework of the "Streets of the Far East" exhibition, 11 Far Easte
rn regions presented their key projects and achievements across various fields. One of the coziest, most interesting, lively, and crowded pavilions was Chukotka. And of course, this is our pride and satisfaction. So what was in it?
The pavilion is a conventional name for the location where the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug presented itself as it is – open, friendly, unusual, and very heartfelt. Our task was to make all this warmth of the Arctic region as visual, interesting, attractive, and accessible as possible. To surprise. To attract.
INTERACTIVE EXHIBIT "MOTHER CHUKOTKA"
At the entrance 
to the pavilion, guests were greeted by Mother Chukotka. This interactive attraction became a real focal point – people came here to talk, listen, get absorbed in videos, laugh, and send greetings to distant loved ones. Mother Chukotka is an interactive character. More precisely – two: a Chukchi woman and her son. The son’s name is "Kityonok," and, honestly, his main function was just waving his hands before the video on the guest’s chosen topic played, and the transformation of the woman into the Mother. Because how e
lse to show a mother? Put her son next to her. Mother Chukotka sat on a stone covered with a hide, in the middle of a snowy valley next to the Sun Sign – one of the region’s most famous landmarks. This is the intersection point of the Arctic Circle and the 180th meridian, marked by the Sun Sign in endless motion, symbolizing the end of the old day and the beginning of the new. A three-meter astronomical sun sign – a concrete disc with a hole in the middle. Looking through it, one can see the true geographic intersection of the 180th meridian and the Arctic Circle. But that is there – in Chukotka. For us, the sun circle showed videos and acted as a portal to Chukotka itself, with its extraordinary corners, cosmic landscapes, 
and vast expanses.
The essence of the interactive attraction "Mother Chukotka" is that the guest can communicate with her, ask questions, and watch a video about the point chosen on the map. Mother Chukotka holds dialogues in real time, jokes, sends greetings, and talks about anything and everything. The stand attendants invited guests to Mother as a product of Artificial Intelligence. Mother Chukotka spoke by herself, but with a completely human voice, recorded a 
month earlier in a studio in Krasnodar and fed into the AI. The installation turned out very impressive, although it caused many worries among us, the ones who always doubt everything. Force majeure events happened, and they were impossible to predict. However, professional handling of these situations is one of our unique selling points, so no guest noticed anything unusual.
INTERACTIVE EXHIBIT "LEVITATING BALLS"
The Chukotka AO p
avilion was not limited to just one interactive installation, "Mother Chukotka." Another attraction was an area we called "Levitating Balls" in our work chat. The installation consisted of six columns, above which small balls hovered in the air. The guest took one of them and placed it in a special spot on the central column. At that moment, a video corresponding to the theme indicated on the ball started on a large screen behind them. Everything was fine, interesting, the videos bright and clear. But — anyone could take a ball, yet putting i
t back and hanging it in the air between two magnets hidden in an arc turned out to be difficult for many. Especially on the days when the Forum closed and "Streets of the Far East" were open to all comers. Mothers with children formed long noisy queues so that their little ones could personally take the ball hanging in the air from its place and put it back themselves. Obviously, the children didn’t care about the content. The entire point of the installation shifted t
o studying the wonderful properties of magnetic fields. As a result, in small awkward hands, the balls categorically wouldn’t stay, constantly falling, gradually losing their shiny appearance, forcing us to invent new ways to restore them. Quickly and beautifully. In the end, everything was fine – the balls shone with perfectly smooth sides in their places, the videos played, and people were amazed.
INTERACTIVE EXHIBIT "CHUKOTKA BALL"
Another installation that became a true guide for pavilion guests to Chukotka was the interactive sphere 2.6 meters in diameter called "Sounds of Chukotka," installed right on the embankment and involving passersby in a strange round dance around it. The white plastic ball was designed like a traditional Eskimo ball – in the red patterns, we cleverly inserted images of palms so that guests, placing their hands on them, could
hear various sounds of the Chukotka land – the noise of the Anadyr port, the call of the reindeer, the murmur of bird markets on Wrangel Island, the roar of walruses on the shoal, and other authentic sounds unfamiliar to many mainland residents. The ball fascinated everyone regardless of gender, age, social status, or whether they had a participant badge.
LASER SHOW "DREAMS OF CHUKOTKA"
The most vivid magic, like any magic, began after sunset. The Chukotka pavilion blossomed with semi-transparent but bright and atmospheric images of the laser show "Dreams of Chukotka" – on glass walls, reflecting thousands o
f colorful beams and lines, a she-bear with her cub walked, a whale jumped out of the ocean, the Earth Founder – Raven Kuth spread his huge wings. The embankment blossomed with light installations, the sky was cut by beams of multicolored spotlights, the stage areas on the bay shore sang in all keys – like Gelendzhik in peak season, not foggy distant Vladivostok.
The last day ended with a quick dismantling – everyone had finally recovered, was quite tired, and dreamed of leaving the embankment for good this year. We dismantled all our beloved installations in literally a couple of hours. The emptied embankment, unusual silence, ruined pavilion. That’s it. We worked it o
ut. It succeeded!
Flights again, familiar faces flashing in airports. Quick transfers, lost luggage, Black Sea heat, the journey home with the last of our strength… We parted at the Goryachy Klyuch station. Unable to endure three hours knowing we could get home in an hour, we took a taxi. We hugged like comrades-in-arms. Ahead – calm, sleep, laziness, simple household chores, and carefree lounging on every horizontal surface. And then – somewhere again. Again to think, invent, color someone’s world with the amazing, bright, attractive, wonderful, unusual, warm… And quietly smile as magicians, handing over finished films and videos, installations and attractions, presentations and games. 