An employee of the Russian Guard became a laureate of the International Literary Competition. It turned out that the prize was awarded for money.

Rosgvardia announced that its employee, police warrant officer Alexei Abramov, became a laureate of the Stanislav Lem International Competition in the Fantasy category, but it turned out that this award was given for money. About it informs Jellyfish.

“Aleksey Abramov became a third-degree laureate, yielding second place to the Canadian writer Stephen Erickson, and the first to the world-famous Stephen King,” says the Rosgvardia website.

Abramov was awarded for the book for children “Underground in the Clouds”.

As the newspaper notes, the results of the Stanislav Lem International Competition were summed up by the International Union of Writers at the end of November. The union calls itself “the world’s largest organization of professional writers.” At the same time, only “socially unprotected” people could take part in the literary project free of charge, for the rest the cost of the application varied from 13 to 59 thousand rubles. Paid participation allowed “to receive the title of diploma holder or laureate of I, II, III degrees” of one of six prizes. Moreover, those who contribute the maximum amount of 59 thousand rubles are automatically included in the short lists of applicants for awards. What package of participation Alexei Abramov from Rosgvardia had is unknown.

The book for children “Dungeon in the Clouds. The Witch Delivery Service “by Alexey Abramov was released in July 2021. It tells about the adventures of two girls Lisa and Anya, who are invited to “visit the world of the Dwarves and help to deal with the mysterious disappearances of individual houses and entire villages of the Dwarves.” In the foreword to the book, it is reported that money for its publication was raised on the Planeta crowdfunding platform.

The International Union of Writers has been criticized in the past because people who did not apply for the organization’s literary awards participated. For example, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, British playwright Tom Stoppard or Russian politician Alexei Navalny.

In 2020, poet Vitaly Pukhanov and his wife, writer Olga Slavnikova, demanded that the International Union of Writers remove their names from the list of honorary members of the organization, after which bots attacked their Facebook pages.