Ever heard of the Issyk Kul? No? Then you haven’t heard of the Russian Language Debate Championship that is going to be staged by this saline lake in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan from 17 to 20 September 2011. The competition will be organized by the International Debate Education Association (IDEA). Language of the tournament is – guess! – Russian, format will be the British Parliamentary Style (BPS) though. The Russian Language Debate Championship is open to Russian speaking teams from all over the world. Workshops for debaters as well as for judges  and socials will be on the schedule of the tournament, the organizers promise on their website where more details on the Russian Language Debate Championship will be available soon.

The International Debate Education Association (IDEA) has its roots in the collapse of the Soviet Union that left the people of Central and Eastern Europe disenchanted as is said on the IDEA website. In 1994, the Open Society Institute (OSI) was founded to promote democracy and arguments about it. At first focusing on secondary students, 1997 was the year when also university students joined the programmes of OSI. It was not before 1999 that the IDEA was founded by the OSI as an independent body to coordinate and promote debating even further with international standards. Having spread debating in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the former Soviet Union, IDEA now spreads into Central Asia and even Haiti.