Only in Russia - Inflight Dictation Exercises

I have seen quite a few interesting activites taking place at 30,000ft, from music concerts to model cat-walks, but I must admit this one is quite unusual.

Picture: S7 Airlines

On 16th April, an flight 182 of Russian airline S7, from Novosibirsk to Moscow, was the scenario of an in-flight dictation exercise («Тотальный диктант» in Russia). 

S7 is a partner of the "Total Dictation" initiative («Тотальный диктант» in Russian), an educational initiative that saw over 108,000 participants in 549 cities spread across 58 countries test their ortography skills with a text of Russian writer Andrey Usachev.

On S7's flight 182, 50 passengers volunteered to take part in the exercise when the crew started to distribute pen and paper, although only 37 of them finally submitted the results for checking after Usachev's text was read aloud.

There are some pictures of this in-flight event on Marina Lystseva's blog (in Russian).