The Social Fund and Rostelecom announce the 2025 results of their joint project, the Internet Alphabet. Nearly 50,000 seniors completed their training in computer literacy and internet use.
The training takes place at various venues; lately, the Social Fund's Communication Centers for Seniors have increasingly served for that purpose. Functioning across the country, including in remote regions, these centers give elderly people a chance to spend their time in fun and meaningful ways, learn new skills and remain socially engaged. Last year, 12,500 people attended Internet Alphabet courses at the Social Fund's Communication Centers for Seniors.
One of the Internet Alphabet's major events is the all-Russian Thank You, Internet competition bringing together thousand contestants from all over the country every year. Seniors who have mastered their computer courses compete against each other to showcase their newly acquired skills. 5,700 people from 79 regions of Russia competed last year, with a significant portion of them (80% of all submitted entries) coming from medium and small cities, as well as rural areas. Furthermore, 83.2% of the participants are active users of the Gosuslugi Portal.
In 2025, teachers took part in the contest for the second time, with a special nomination set up for them. It features specific rules for determining the winners: participants present their own method designs, to be evaluated not by experts, but by fellow teachers with practical experience in handling the competition's target audience Winners were awarded batches of textbooks: the most valuable gift for them.
On top of that, for the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, celebrated last year, a whole series of themed events was scheduled, turning into a veritable Victory Marathon.
Specifically, it included a new training course on how to search for participants Great Patriotic War online. This course is focused on the basics of search operations, to help users understand where to start looking for missing or deceased relatives, their awards, burial sites, wounds, heroic deeds and combat histories.
A special category, 80 Years of Victory: Living Memory of Heroes, was announced for the Thank You, Internet! competition. 638 incredibly touching stories about the heroic deeds of the Soviet people were submitted to the category. The results were announced last November.
An all-Russian web conference was also held ahead of the 80th anniversary of Victory, where Internet Alphabet instructors shared their experience in searching for relatives who went missing during the Great Patriotic War, generating inquiries on lost documents and awards, and restoring war monuments. Over 1,500 people took part in the event: not only teachers but also students of computer literacy courses from 61 Russian regions.
Retirees learned how they can prepare for the Victory Dictation using the Rostelecom. Lyceum platform and attended masterclasses teaching them how to use specialized internet resources to search for information about heroes of the Great Patriotic War, create digital Victory Day postcards or make smartphone slide shows of archival family photographs.
To remind you, Internet Alphabet is a joint project of the Social Fund of Russia and Rostelecom that involves holding training courses for seniors, publishing teaching aids and a textbook. The internet portal of the same name has been developed under a cooperation agreement between Rostelecom and the Social Fund that covers computer literacy training for retirees. Its major goal is to facilitate access to online government services for elderly people and to improve their quality of life through mastering computer literacy and using the internet.
All publications on the "Internet Alphabet" website are constantly updated, alongside coverage of new topics. User inquiries sent via the feedback form on the website and the official VK group play an important part in choosing those topics. There are over 2,500 registered users in a dedicated VK group for teachers, where community members share their experience and learn project news. The Internet Alphabet Zen channel publishing the finalists' works and the latest education materials gains 1,200 subscribers.