Hi, Codeforces!

December is the perfect time to wrap up the year, and we’re happy to invite you to follow the final stages of the most important school and student team competitions in competitive programming. Mark your calendars: from December 15 to 17, the 26th Russian Team Olympiad in High School Programming Contest and the ICPC Northern Eurasia Finals 2025 will take place.

The official opening of the championships will be on Monday, December 15. The detailed schedule is available on the website.

On our accounts, we’ll be sharing updates about the participants and their results. As usual, we’ve put together a list of useful materials in a single post; it will be updated gradually so you can conveniently follow the progress of the competitions and cheer for your favorites. By the way, who do you think will become the champions of RTO HSPC and NEF?

ICPC Northern Eurasia Finals

The ICPC semifinals in our region celebrate their 30th anniversary this year — three decades of algorithmic contests that have brought together thousands of participants, hundreds of practice contests, months of preparation, multi-stage regional selections, and bright, inspiring victories. What anniversary surprises have the organizers prepared this year? Stay tuned for the news — it’s going to be exciting!

This season, nearly 3,000 teams took part in all qualification stages, and only 341 of them made it to the Northern Eurasia Finals. You can see how the regional contests went on the ICPC NERC page for this season on icpc.global, as well as in our gallery, where we’ve collected photos from the quarterfinals and qualification rounds. We also gathered team reactions from Saint Petersburg and Moscow during the quarterfinals — you can find them here.

The student team championship, as in previous years, is held in a distributed format across Saint Petersburg, Almaty, Novosibirsk, and Tbilisi. Already on Wednesday, December 17, the teams will face a crucial intellectual battle that will determine the finalists of ICPC 2026, who will represent Northern Eurasia on the world stage. The venue of the next final has not yet been announced, but we’re eagerly awaiting the news and guessing where it might take place.

For those who are not participating in the NEF, there will be an opportunity to solve the same problems in the “mirror” contest here on the platform. Registration is already open!

Join the live stream of the ICPC Northern Eurasia Finals contest on Wednesday, December 17, at 10:00 (utc+3), and the live stream of the closing ceremony scheduled for 17:00, to be the first to find out everything!

RTO HSPC 2025

On Tuesday, December 16, the main round of the RTO HSPC 2025 school team championship will take place. Based on the qualification results, 266 teams have been invited to compete. As with the student contests, the final round is held in a distributed format across several cities: 156 teams will compete at Lakhta Hall in Saint Petersburg, 72 teams in Almaty (Kazakhstan), 28 teams in Novosibirsk, and another 10 teams in Sirius.

The main round of the Russian Team Olympiad in High School Programming Contest, along with the live stream, will start on Tuesday at 10:00 Moscow time — join us to watch the next generation of young talents. We will find out who becomes the RTO HSPC champion later the same day during the closing ceremony live stream at 17:00.

Tag your favorites in the comments and wish them good luck!

Hello everyone!

After all online qualifiers, we are pleased to announce that the Northern Eurasia Finals and ICPC 2021 semi-final offline stage will take place this weekend on April 3-4!

ICPCLive broadcast Standings

Mirror Problems Problems solutions

In December 2020, we announced that 50 student teams out of 330 were selected for the Northern Eurasia Finals. Most of the teams will compete in St. Petersburg. Still, some teams will compete at Minsk, Tbilisi, and Riga sites due to travel restrictions between countries.

NERCNews is going to monitor the championship and report on the main events! We will post links to the results table, contest tasks, contest mirror, and analytics published on the official website.

UPD today were qualified for ICPC 2021 World Finals next 12 teams:

• SPb ITMO: Insert your name (Budin, Korobkov, Naumov)
• HSE: Overtrained (Gorokhovskii, Safonov, Rakhmatullin)
• Moscow SU: Nonames (Koshelev, Chunaev, Kalendarov)
• St. Petersburg SU: LOUD Enough (Bochkov, Makarov, Gaevoi)
• Saratov SU: N (Petrov, Piklyaev, Meshcheryakov)
• SPb HSE 1: Lemon Tree (Makhnev, Surkov, Alferov)
• Belarusian SU: 3 (Klimasheuski, Paliukhovich, Filinovich)
• Moscow IPT: LinkCat (Zgursky, Gaponov, Surkov)
• Kazan FU: AJ (Ilikayev, Yagafarov, Kapralov)
• NNSU: 1 (Khlyustov, Ryabchikova, Emelin)
• Tolyatti SU: A (Zakharov, Sabirov, Panin)
• IITU: 1 (Baimukanov, Sardarbekov, Kyzyrkanov)

Also, join the traditional ICPCLive team online broadcast from the site in St. Petersburg. The schedule for both days can be found here.

We have compiled a list of teams grouped by ratings, which will be especially interesting to follow. What are your predictions? Favorites?

Share your impressions and photos on social networks using hashtag #NERC.

Who will represent the Northern Eurasian Region in the ICPC 2021 Final whenever it happens? We will find out this Sunday! Stay tuned!

Hello everyone!

We are thrilled to invite you to the great event — ICPC NERC Challenge powered by Huawei 12 — 20 December 2020.

This contest is based on some real problems from Huawei Cloud team. The task is simplified, but still very challenging. You need to find a schedule for a variety of realistic problem instances, where the goal will be minimizing two different cost functions. There is a non-trivial tradeoff, decision you have to make, on how to choose what is best for a particular case. You will be provided with examples that can help you to tackle the problem. A good solution may also require diving deeper into the nature of the problem, and creating some dataset of your own. We believe there are multiple approaches one can try here, and some crossover of the algorithms will also increase your chances to win. Good luck, we hope this will be fun!

The ICPC NERC Cloud Scheduling Challenge powered by Huawei will take place online during the week of December 12-20. This round is unrated for all participants. Everybody is welcome to participate. It is an individual competition. Participants will be divided into two groups: Northern Eurasia Contestants 2020 (all subregions) and all other Participants. If you are a NERC 2020 contestant and you want to take part in ICPC NERC Challenge, link your ICPC account to the Codeforces account here: https://mirror.codeforces.com/settings/general

The top-scoring participants will also receive great prizes. Huawei will provide prizes to the 12 winners in both groups accordingly:

• 1-4th place — HUAWEI P40 PRO
• 5-8th place — HUAWEI MATEPAD PRO LTE
• 9-12th place — HUAWEI WATCH GT 2E

In this video Andrey Tikhonov, the co-author of Cloud Scheduling Challenge will explain the basics of the task and describe some special cases and examples:

UPD: ICPC NERC Cloud Scheduling Challenge successfully finished! Thanks all for competing. Congratulations to winners with excellent results! In the video below Andrey Tikhonov will explain the problem solution:

Good luck to all participants!

Hello friends!

ICPCLive broadcast

Standings

Problems

This weekend we'll hold two large-scale final stages of important Championships in the region: ICPC Northern Eurasia Finals 2019 and Russia Open High School Team Programming Contest.

Competitions are traditionally held at several places: in St. Petersburg, Barnaul, Almaty, Tbilisi and Kremenchuk. School teams will fight for the "Champions of Russia" Cup. Student teams will meet in a serious intellectual fight for places to the ICPC 2020 World Finals, which will be held on June 25 in Moscow. This is going to be the third final organized in our region.

Of course, join ICPCLive broadcasts for live-streaming from both events. Live streams are expected from the opening of the championship, both contests, and closing ceremonies.

UPD: Congratulations to teams of ICPC 2020 finalists!

• SPb SU: 25 (Belichenko, Bykov, Petrov)
• Nizhny Novgorod SU: Almost Retired (Daniliuk, Kalinin, Ryabchikova)
• MIPT: Godnotent (Belykh, Golovanov, Sergunin)
• SPb ITMO: 1 Standard deviation (Budin, Kirillov, Sayutin)
• Innopolis: 1 (Gaivoronskiy, Khakimiyon, Yalalov)
• HSE: Logarifmya4ka (Anoprenko, Romanov, Safonov)
• Belarusian SU: #1 (Dubovik, Karabeinikau, Kernazhytski)
• Latvia: 2 (Civkulis, Zajakins, Zajakins)
• Moscow SU: NoNames (Chunaev, Kalendarov, Koshelev)
• SPb HSE: Last Hope (Bogomolov, Labutin, Podguzov)
• Saratov SU: 1 (Meshcheryakov, Petrov, Piklyaev)
• Belarusian NTU: #1: Great team (Sheftelevich, Vasileuski, Zdanovich)
• Kazan FU: 2 (Ilikayev, Kapralov, Yagafarov)
• Yerevan SU: One Last Dance (Galstyan, Muradyan, Mikaelyan)
• International IT University: 2 (Kuanyshbay, Niyazbekov, Khlinovskiy)
• Belarusian SUIR: #2 (Shavel, Udovin, Vishneuski)

ROHSTPC

269 teams were invited to participate in the final stage of the competition. 128 of them will meet in Saint Petersburg in the historical park "Russia — is my history". 49 teams will compete in Barnaul, 56 teams — in Almaty and 18 teams will take part in the competition in Tbilisi and Kremenchuk.

The main round of the championship will begin this Saturday (30 November) at 10:00. As the tour starts, we'll add links for you to monitor results.

Some teams that have high chances of becoming Cup winners are listed in the table below:

Team	City	Participant 1	Participant 2	Participant 3	Rating
Power of Three	St.Petersburg	Ефремов Андрей receed	Гайнуллин Ильдар 300iq	Одинцов Андрей forestryks	8110
Mex Foundation	Moscow	Лифарь Егор kiyotaka	Савкин Семён cookiedoth	Шеховцов Александр Jatana	7657
Graneli	Tbilisi	Birkadze Nika bruhh	Toloraia Teimuraz Temotoloraia	Basadzishvili Archil achi_basadzishvili	7271
а)	Moscow	Ушаков Фёдор ----------	Федосеев Тимофей dyrbulshchyl	Пискалов Дмитрий TheWayISteppedOutTheCar	7189
Ого! Кажетсья это $#@!	Moscow	Логинов Игорь IgorI	Шуклин Максим xoxo	Садовничий Антон sadovan	7092
Преимущественно овощи	Kazan	Миннахметов Булат Minnakhmetov	Харисов Булат Nutella3000	Исмагилов Азат ismagilov.code	6912

More teams with their total ratings you can see in the post. Thank you very much, ismagilov.code!

Northern Eurasia Finals

Student competitions will start this Sunday, December 1 at 9:30(Moscow time) at four sites: the historical Park in St. Petersburg, the Altai state technical University in Barnaul, the Georgian University of Business and Technology in Tbilisi and the Kazakh-British Technical University in Almaty.

Links to the results table, as well as the tasks of the contest will be provided soon after the start of the main round of the competition.

If you don't plan to participate in the semifinals, you can try your hand at the challenges of the Northern Eurasia finals in the mirror.

We're going to follow the teams and tell you about the news! Note that the results of this contest dictates which teams will be selected to represent the North Eurasia Region on World Finals ICPC 2020.

Some teams with their total ratings, which we're going to follow especially closely listed in a table below:

Share with us your news, impressions, and photos with hashtags #NEF and #ВКОШП.

Hello everyone!

The season of Regional Qualifying Championships in the Northern Eurasian super-region is coming, and this weekend is up to hold an exciting competition between 8 regions!

7 qualifying rounds already passed in Belarus & Baltic States, South Russia & Volga regions. Champions of these quarter-finals earned their place to participate in the semi-finals at the Regional Championships. As usual, the final contest in Northern Eurasia will be held on December 1st, 2019! See the best in St. Petersburg, Barnaul, Almaty and Tbilisi.

But now we would like to follow teams competing in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Yerevan, Almaty, Simferopol and Novosibirsk this Saturday 26 October! And of course, teams of Central Russia, which are going to participate in the championship in Yaroslavl on Sunday 27 October!

Join us to cheer for teams together and watch the online broadcast by the ICPCLive team! The broadcast will be provided by our lovely commentator and a member of the committee — Aksenov239. To be sure — the broadcast will be joined by guests, team coaches, other committee members, and organizers.

All important dates and results collected in the table below:

We will look for competitors and provide you the latest news and all the relevant information. Share your stories and photos with us by using the hashtag #NERC.

Hello friends!

This weekend, on 8-9th of December — St. Petersburg, Barnaul, Kremenchug, Tbilisi, Almaty and Sochi will host the XIX Russia Team Open High School Programming Contest. Competition will be attended by more than 250 teams. Contest is held for the first time in Sochi this year -Educational Center “Sirius” will host nine teams.

The main contest will start on 9th of December at 10:00. You can follow current results by the link. Link to the tasks will be able right after the start of the tour.

A mirror will be available on Dec/09/2018 11:05 (Moscow time) – this is for those, who are not a participant, but also want to solve interesting problems! Do not join our broadcasts if you plan to take a part in the mirror. We warn you that, because of spoilers. And, of course, do not open the problem conditions before the start of the round.

If you do not want to participate in a mirror, be sure to join our broadcasts — in video format from the ICPCLive team and in text format in our Telegram-channel!

And if you want to come to the Russia Team High School Contest in St. Petersburg as a guest – just fill in the guest form and get your badge at the registration!

Our friend ismagilov.code has a post – follow this link to see a large set of commands with their total rating. Thank you for interesting information!

And please welcome some teams that stand a good chance to become Cup winners:

Olá a todos!

Current Standings

The first winter weekend of the year would be tough for students who arrive to St. Petersburg, Barnaul, Almaty and Tbilisi. On the 1-2 of December ITMO University, Altai State Technical University, European University and Kazakh-British Technical University will host the final contest of Northern Eurasia. Participants are going to face a serious competition – they will fight for the right to represent their university on the finals of the ICPC 2019 in April in Portugal.

At the ITMO University stage we also expect 131 teams, including the Champions and Vice-Champions (but, worth mentioning, NEERC Champions) from last year ICPC'18.

Stay tuned for the latest news and monitors from the competition! These guys will go to the Porto to represent our Northern Eurasian region! Participants of our region have been taken the Final ICPC Cup for the last seven years. Will they continue their series of victories? Will see!

UPD: To the finals ICPC 2019 were qualified 15 teams:

1. Moscow SU 3 (Makeev, Reznikov, Ipatov)
2. Moscow IPT 6 (Sergunin, Belykh, Stepanov)
3. International IT U 1 (Satylkhanov, Baimukanov, Kuanyshbay)
4. SPb ITMO University 2 (Poduremennykh, Naumov, Korobkov)
5. SPb br of NRU HSE 1 (Ermilov, Fedorov, Labutin)
6. U of Latvia 2 (Klevickis, Pretkalnins, Pakalns)
7. SPb SU 5 (Grebennikov, Fadeeva, Zavarin)
8. Belarusian SU 1 (Lukyanov, Rak, Kim)
9. NRU HS of Economics 1 (Sakhabiev, Nikolenko, Gribov)
10. Kazakh-British TU 1 (Amanov, Aman, Zhussupov)
11. Saratov SU 1 (Androsov, Glazov, Dalabaev)
12. Belarusian SUIR 1 (Mosko, Razhkou, Shilyaev)
13. Tbilisi IBSU 1 (Ksovreli, Narushvili, Svanidze)
14. Northern FU (Dyachkov, Guriev, Asyutchenko)
15. Ural FU 6 (Permyakov, Zuev, Mullabaev)

Follow the official competition hashtag #NEERC and join a live video, organized by ICPCLive and, in person, Aksenov239.

We are pleased to notice that this year at the NEERC will be special! We host some unique guests from the Committee of the ICPC organization – the Executive Director of the ICPC, Dr. Bill Poucher and Deputy Executive Director of the ICPC, Dr. Jeff Donahue. We will passionate to hear some inspiring words for our teams from Bill! And, of course, don’t miss the interviews with our special guests live!

If you want to visit the championship as a guest – please fill out the form.

If you do not participate in the semifinals, you can try to solve problems from 23rd NEERC challenge in the mirror. It will start in a few minutes after the main round on December 2nd. The tasks will be provided in English only. The mirror is an unrated contest.

We have compiled a table of participating teams with the total Codeforces rating >= 7000. Who is your favorite thou?

Вoa sorte! Siga-nos:

Let us introduce the new programming language in ICPC: Kotlin. It is modern and developing language created by our sponsor JetBrains. Kotlin is inspired by Java and as Java is named after the island. Currently, Kotlin programs are compiled into JVM bytecode, all Java written code can be used from Kotlin sources and Kotlin written code can be used from Java sources as well out of the box. Kotlin being developed now most of the standard libraries are Java library classes, making Kotlin a programing language that is already used in many projects being the main language of their development.

Comparing to Java language some Java disadvantages fixed and new features added. Some of them we will see in today's solution of ICPC World Finals 2016 problem C (101242C - Ceiling Function). Less boilerplate code and syntactic sugar added

1. new operator omitted
2. data classes implement hashCode, equals and toString methods depending on constructor parameters
3. operator overloading
4. with function, to implement a block of code, making captured value as this
5. when operator providing better readability of conditional operator in some cases
6. type inference (IDE supports hints on variable and function types, it's just you don't have to type it)
7. functional programming style

import java.util.*

data class Tree(var left: Tree? = null, var right: Tree? = null) {
    var value = 0
}

operator fun Tree?.plus(x: Int): Tree? {
    if (this == null) return Tree().apply { value = x }
    if (x < value) {
        left += x
    } else {
        right += x
    }
    return this
}

fun main(args: Array<String>) = with(Scanner(System.`in`)) {
    val n = nextInt()
    val k = nextInt()
    val a = Array(n) { IntArray(k) { nextInt() } }
    println(a.map { it.fold(null, Tree?::plus) }.toSet().size)
}

You can try Kotlin at: https://try.kotlinlang.org