(http://www.isi-web.org/images/news/2015%20IASE%20News%20November.pdf) 

«I [Andrej] was invited to attend the First Open Russian Statistical Congress, held in Novosibirsk around the World Statistics Day, 20 October 2015. The congress was organized by the Russian Association of Statisticians (RAS), a group founded only last year. Novosibirsk is the third largest city in the Russian Federation (after Moscow and St. Petersburg) and is the cultural, academic, and industrial center of Siberia. I was hoping for a stereotypic cold and snowy Siberian weather, but it was too early in the year and we had wet, cloudy, and not so cold weather.
In contrast to the mild weather, more than 300 participants from Russia and 6 invited international guests were warmly welcomed. The whole conference was a very pleasant and friendly experience. The International Statistical Institute was well represented by ISI Director Ada van Krimpen and me. We were both invited to speak in the plenary sessions of the first day. These invitations demonstrate value the Russian statisticians attach to the ISI and statistical education. Ada van Krimpen held a presentation about the ISI and its family of Associations; I talked about the skills that modern-day statisticians need.

From left to right: Masakova I. D. (Deputy Head of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service), Andrej Blejec (IASE President), Irina Eliseeva (Program Chair), and Alexey Ponomarenko (RAS President) during the plenary session.
On the second day, I attended a session about The Development of Statistical Education in Russia. I was happy that my high school Russian somehow reappeared from the forgotten part of my memory and was sufficient to follow and enjoy the program. I was very pleased with not only the quality of the presentations, but also the energy and emotion that presenters put into their presentations. Questions and discussion were real extensions of the presented topics. Russia is modernizing and changing their studies of statistics. Universities are adopting the European, so called "Bologna" model, and presenters shared their experiences. Statistical studies are currently dominated by the field of economics; they intend to expand to other fields. Alexey Ponomarenko, RAS President, presented the RAS’s efforts to standardize the profile of a statistician, which will be a base for redefinition of educational standards.
An important part of any conference is networking. It was a pleasure to see small groups of people, all from different parts of Russia and not familiar with each other before, making plans for future collaborations. Russian statisticians are very interested in cooperation with the ISI and in particular with the IASE. I was pleased to have the opportunity to present the mission and goals of the IASE. I hope to see new members from Russia joining both the ISI and IASE and becoming part of our networks.»