On October 14, 2026, the district rally of search teams "No One Is Forgotten" opened in Nizhny Novgorod — an annual competitive event for search-and-recovery volunteers from the Volga Federal District. In 2026, Nizhny Novgorod Region is hosting the rally for the sixth year in a row. The 2026 rally was the twelfth overall: the office of the President's plenipotentiary representative in the Volga Federal District has supported the search movement for twelve years.[1][2]

Participants and program

240 people took part in the rally: 14 combined teams from the constituent entities of the Volga Federal District and one combined team from the Ural Federal District.[3] The event is scheduled to last four days.[2] The official opening took place at the Presidential Academy (Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Management of RANEPA).[4]

Participants compete in eight competition events: a military-history quiz on "World War II, 1939–1945," topography and terrain orienteering, archival research, and the procedures for conducting and documenting field and search operations. For the first time, the rally's program included the "Search Trail" competition event, which simulates search work in real field conditions.[1][2] Social initiatives are held in parallel: making camouflage nets and trench candles, and collecting aid for military personnel. Rally participants made 100 trench candles and several camouflage nets and collected warm clothing; the aid was scheduled to be sent on November 4, National Unity Day.[1][3]

Exhibition and video project

As part of the rally, an exhibition on the results of the 2026 field season opened in the Manezh of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. The exhibition ran on October 15 and 16; over the two days it was visited by 1,325 people, including 490 schoolchildren and 525 technical-college students.[1] The central exhibit of the Nizhny Novgorod display was the mount of a Maxim machine gun, found in the spring of 2026 in the Staraya Russa District of Novgorod Region during the "Gorky Line" expedition.[2]

At the opening ceremony, a video project by the regional Ministry of Youth Policy was presented: more than a hundred Nizhny Novgorod residents perform the State Anthem of the Russian Federation at landmark sites across the Region. The musical arrangement was created by the Tavrida art cluster. According to Svetlana Anufrieva, Minister of Youth Policy of Nizhny Novgorod Region, the project is meant to show the diversity of the region and the continuity of generations.[2]

Context: the search movement in the region

Governor Gleb Nikitin, speaking at the opening of the rally, noted that there are 21 search teams operating in Nizhny Novgorod Region. Also at the opening, the governor announced an initiative by the Nizhny Novgorod search community to establish a Searcher's Day and mark it on July 6 — in memory of the day in 1988 when Gorky searchers discovered the first remains of a Red Army soldier.[5] In 2026, Nizhny Novgorod searchers conducted 15 expeditions to battle sites — from the Smolensk area to the Far East, from Novgorod Region to Ingushetia.[2]

Ekaterina Lebedeva, director of the Nizhny Novgorod Institute of Management, spoke about the search team "Guard of the Presidential Academy": in the spring of 2026, its members traveled to the Demyansk bridgehead (Novgorod Region), where they recovered the remains of seven soldiers and found personal items bearing names, which were handed over to the university's museum.[4]

Dmitry Solovyov, head of the department for the implementation of public projects in the office of the Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Volga Federal District, stressed that the possibility of finding the relatives of the fallen depends on the accuracy of search work. Oleg Mashkovtsev, Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President in the Volga Federal District, said at the rally that in 2026 the search team "Sovest" ("Conscience") returned his own relative — a pilot, the only captain in an assault regiment: the searchers looked for the aircraft for five years and ultimately found it together with the remains of the fallen airman.[6][2] The rally was organized by the office of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of Russia in the Volga Federal District and the government of Nizhny Novgorod Region.[2]

In effect, the central exhibit turned out to be a Sokolov mount for the Maxim machine gun weighing about 50 kilograms — a piece of equipment that went through the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, and the Great Patriotic War; to deliver the rarity to the exhibition, Vladislav Shablov, commander of the Nizhny Novgorod team "Vekha," enlisted his students.[6]

The Samara delegation took fourth place overall, winning first place in the "Archival Search" competition, second in "First Aid," and third in the "Exhibition Based on the Results of the Field Season."[1]

Sources

  1. volga.news — The 2026 rally was the twelfth in a row: the office of the Presidential Envoy to the Volga Federal District has supported the search movement for twelve years.
  2. Vremya N — The "No One Is Forgotten" Search Teams Rally Kicks Off in Nizhny Novgorod
  3. Newsroom24 — The "No One Is Forgotten" Search Teams Rally Has Begun in Nizhny Novgorod — Society
  4. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — The District Search Teams Rally Is Launched at the Presidential Academy's Nizhny Novgorod Institute — Nizhny Novgorod News
  5. GTRK "Nizhny Novgorod" (Vesti) — The Nizhny Novgorod Search Community Proposed Establishing a Search Worker Day, to Be Celebrated on July 6 — in Memory of the Day the First Remains Were Found
  6. GTRK "Nizhny Novgorod" (Vesti) — The Central Exhibit of the Nizhny Novgorod Display at the Manezh Exhibition Turned Out to Be Not Just a Mount, but a Sokolov Mount for the Maxim Machine Gun Weighing About 50 Kilograms
  7. Zhivyom v Nizhnem — The "No One Is Forgotten" Search Teams Rally Kicks Off in Nizhny Novgorod — Zhivyom v Nizhnem