Three students from De La Salle College, Cottonera, will be spending a week in Moscow and St Petersburg after winning a quiz on Russia organised by the Unesco Club (Malta) and the Russian Centre for Science and Culture, which is sponsoring the trip.

The three boys - Gabriel Pace, Samuel Dimech and James D'Agostino - correctly answered all but one of their 20 questions. The other finalists were three girls from Newark Junior School, Sliema - Elizaveta Levinskaia, Annabelle Cricchiola and Yasmine Fadhlaoui, who came second, and a girls' team from St Thomas More College, Żejtun, which placed third.

The quiz, which was open to students up to 15 years of age in State, Church and private schools, was based on the book, The 100 Most Beautiful Treasures of Russia. The teams each had to answer 10 questions by picking a number equivalent to one of the 550 questions drawn up for the quiz.

Twenty-one teams of three students each took part in the quiz. They came from Newark Junior School, which entered six teams, St Ignatius College, De La Salle College, St Monica School, Birkirkara, St Paul's Missionary College, St Thomas More College and St Joseph School, Blata l-Bajda. The students were coached for the quiz by their teachers and parents.

The quiz was held to mark Russia's National Day on June 12, which was celebrated with an official reception hosted by Russian Ambassador Andrei Granovsky and Mrs Granovskaya at their residence in Kappara on June 14.