Exhibitions · 2025

Russia’s stand at CIIE 2025 in Shanghai

Exhibitions / Russia’s stand at CIIE 2025 in Shanghai

About the project

The screens of Russia’s national stand at CIIE 2025 in Shanghai: six interactives, a video for the LED ring and English and Chinese subtitles for the film “Soul of Russia”.

From 5 to 10 November 2025 Shanghai hosted the 8th China International Import Expo (CIIE). Russia took part with a national stand organised by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The stand is open on two sides, and an LED ring frieze hangs above it.

The stand itself, the display cases with folk crafts and the LED ring are not our work. Ours are the interactives on the screens in the “Tourism”, “Culture”, “Culture and education” and “Technology and economy” zones, the video on the ring and the subtitles for the film on the wide screen.

Year

2025

Industry

Exhibitions

Scope of work

6 interactives, a video for the LED ring, subtitles for the film “Soul of Russia”

Venue

Russia’s stand, CIIE 2025, Shanghai

6
interactives for the stand screens: 11 328
pixels wide: the video for the LED ring: 3
languages on the screens: Russian, English, Chinese

Russia’s stand at CIIE 2025: the entrance from the “Tourism” zone, the map screen, the music kiosk and the LED ring above the stand — Entrance from the “Tourism” side: the map, the music kiosk and a folk dance on the ring; on the right, the fitting room screen

The task

The stand screens had to tell exhibition visitors about Russia: tourism, culture, education, technology. Each zone needed its own interactive in which visitors choose what to look at themselves: a site on the map, a costume, a song, an answer in a quiz. The ring above the stand needed a video 11 328 pixels wide, and the finished film “Soul of Russia” needed English and Chinese subtitles. There were about three weeks for everything — the final files had to be delivered by 31 October and tests run by 2 November. During the exhibition we provided technical support, and any fault had to be fixed within 30 minutes.

What we did

“Discover Russia map”

A touch kiosk and a large wall screen in the “Tourism” zone. The splash screen reads “Choose layers, explore sites, discover culture” and has a “Start” button.

“Knowledge of Russia”

A quiz on a touch kiosk under a wide screen. Fifteen questions — for example, “Who wrote the music for the ballet ‘Swan Lake’?”. After answering, a visitor sees a card with the correct answer and a short explanation; there is also a hint. The splash screen shows the Kremlin, St Basil’s Cathedral and “Test yourself and get a souvenir!”.

“Sounds of Russia”

Kiosks with headphones: “Immerse yourself in the world of sound”. The screen shows a vinyl record: a visitor picks and listens to Russian music. There are three selections: composers — Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Borodin; 20th-century songs — “Katyusha”, “Moscow nights”, “The Volga flows”, “Walking the streets of Moscow”; contemporary music with ethnic motifs — “Otava Yo”, “Namgar”, “Zventa Sventana” and others.

“Culture and education”

The vertical touch screens in this zone tell visitors about Russian culture and education. One example is the Khokhloma card — photos of the pieces and the story of the craft.

“Try on a costume of the peoples of Russia” fitting room

A vertical screen in the “Culture” zone. A neural-network fitting room with men’s and women’s folk costumes — at least fifteen pairs, as specified in the brief. The images of people in the costumes were also generated by a neural network. The splash screen shows a young woman in folk costume against St Basil’s Cathedral and birch trees.

“Technology and economy”

Six vertical touch panels on two outer walls of the stand. The splash screens show people in folk costumes against a light background; their images were also generated by a neural network.

Splash screens of the fitting room and the “Technology and economy” panels

The stand from outside: two walls of the “Technology and economy” zone with six vertical panels; Yuri Gagarin on the ring — Outside: two “Technology and economy” walls — six vertical panels; Gagarin on the ring

The “Russia” video for the LED ring

The LED ring frieze hangs above the stand. The video moves through images of Russia: Sergei Korolev and “Vostok”, Yuri Gagarin, a satellite, a Moscow Metro train, a nuclear icebreaker, the Bolshoi Theatre, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and ballet, the Kremlin and the Hermitage, a folk dance, Baikal and the mountains, modern cities, children and families.

The LED ring above the stand: a portrait of Sergei Korolev, the “Vostok” rocket and a satellite; under the ring, a display case and music kiosks — On the ring: Sergei Korolev, “Vostok” and a satellite

The entrance to the stand from the “Culture and education” zone: the zone’s two screens, the quiz screen further in and Yuri Gagarin on the ring — Entrance from the “Culture and education” side; Gagarin on the ring

The LED ring above the stand: an aeroplane, a Moscow Metro train and a nuclear icebreaker; under the ring, a display case with craft pieces; on the left, a music kiosk with a record on its screen; on the right, a wall with the vertical panels of the “Technology and economy” zone — On the ring: an aeroplane, a Moscow Metro train and a nuclear icebreaker; on the right, the “Technology and economy” panels

The LED ring above the stand: a portrait of Dmitri Mendeleev with chemical element symbols, the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant and a laboratory; on the left, a music kiosk with headphones and a record on its screen — On the ring: Dmitri Mendeleev, a nuclear power plant and a laboratory; on the left, a music kiosk

Subtitles for the film “Soul of Russia”

The film — poems by Lermontov, Yesenin, Blok, Akhmatova, Nekrasov and Fet set against paintings and landscapes — played on the wide screen above the quiz. We added animated English and Chinese subtitles: the poems run in three languages.

The wide screen with the film “Soul of Russia”: a landscape with a wooden church and lines of verse in three languages; under the screen, the “Knowledge of Russia” quiz kiosk — The film “Soul of Russia” with poems in three languages above the quiz kiosk

How it is built

The interfaces match the stand design: a white background, a red frame with a Khokhloma pattern, red ornamented buttons, headings in a typeface styled after Old Russian vyaz lettering.

The language is switched on screen: Russian, English or Chinese.

The map runs on the kiosk and on the large wall screen next to it — both show the same image.

The “Technology and economy” panels have looping splash screens of 1080 × 1920, about a minute and a half long; the fitting room’s last 8–10 seconds each.

The film “Soul of Russia” was shown on a screen with a 3:1 aspect ratio — 1536 × 512 pixels.

Inside the stand: the wall screen and touch kiosk of the “Discover Russia map”; further in, the wide quiz screen and its kiosk; on the right, the “Immerse yourself in the world of sound” music kiosk with a record on its screen; on the ring above the stand, a modern city and a stadium — Inside the stand: the “Discover Russia map” on the kiosk and the wall screen, the quiz further in and, on the right, the “Immerse yourself in the world of sound” kiosk

Result

The stand was open on every day of the exhibition, 5–10 November 2025. In a review of the national exhibitions on 4 November 2025, the Shanghai outlet “Shangguan” wrote that the Russian stand had several interactive computers with a large collection of Russian songs — classical, Soviet and pop — and that visitors chose for themselves what to listen to.

“Shangguan”, in Chinese: “Robots greet guests at the entrance, heavy trucks drive onto the site… The world’s best goods at the CIIE national exhibitions”