St. Petersburg, the host of ICM 2022, is also my beloved home city and a place of captivating beauty and elegance. The timing of the congress is perfect! Scheduled at the tail end of St. Petersburg’s magical white nights season, it will give you the opportunity to experience the very best of modern mathematics while also enjoying the city in all its cultural, historical, and architectural glory. And it’s unique, too: only in St. Petersburg do locals and visitors alike forget about sleep and gather on the stately embankments of the Neva in the middle of the night to watch the bridges being drawn. It is an unforgettable sight and one which is impossible not to fall in love with.

As President of the IMU Commission for Developing Countries, I appreciate the organizers’ commitment to supporting a thousand mathematicians from developing countries, and I urge mathematicians worldwide to take full advantage of this funding opportunity. As a mathematician who now spends a significant amount of time in St. Petersburg, I hope ICM 2022 will bring together mathematicians from every country on Earth in the city of Euler and Chebyshev.

I am working to organize an ICM 2022 satellite in my home city of Nizhny Novgorod. While it is the vast expanse of the Neva that makes St. Petersburg so stunning, the very different beauty of my home city is similarly underscored by the confluence of two other grand rivers: the Oka and the Volga. Mathematics in Nizhny Novgorod boasts a strong tradition that includes a famous school of dynamical systems created by Andronov in the 1930’s. I look forward to welcoming the world’s leading dynamical system experts to my home city. There are many excellent locations for ICM satellites in Russia, and I hope they will lead to new friendships and collaborations between Russian and international scientists.

St. Petersburg is very proud to host ICM 2022 and the General Assembly of the IMU, and we look forward to welcoming mathematicians from around the whole world to our magnificent city. Our modern congress infrastructure will make the event a smooth and rewarding experience. And to make the most of our famous white nights after a full day of work, I invite you all to explore St. Petersburg’s stunning architecture as well as our museums, performance venues, and other cultural treasures. Our city extends its warm hospitality to people from every corner of the world regardless of their income, identity, religion, or ideology. I wish you a very enjoyable and productive visit to St. Petersburg!

Major international forums attended by world leaders choose our statе-of-the-art ExpoForum center as the venue for their events. In 2022, we will be welcoming the World Energy Congress, the Euroskills Championship, and many other events, including, of course, the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. We are delighted to be chosen as the venue for ICM 2022! ExpoForum is an ideal place to hold a large international congress: there is ample multifunctional space, modern meeting infrastructure, and effective transportation solutions, including a connection to the city center via the newly constructed Western High-Speed Diameter.

Holding the ICM in St. Petersburg is a recognition of the great past and dynamic present of mathematics in my home city, something I am very proud of. In planning the ICM, however, we want to look to the future of mathematics in Russia and in the world, reflecting the paramount role our science plays in everything we do today. In particular, we want our public lectures, exhibitions, and outreach events to emphasize the many deep connections between mathematics, other sciences, industry, and our life in general. Our ICM will reflect all the different facets of modern mathematics.

There is more to ICM than mathematicians talking to other mathematicians ! An ICM is a great chance for all people to discover what is new in mathematics and neighboring fields. I am working on building avenues for such discovery, including organizing a gathering of science journalists and a festival of movies about mathematics and science. Stay up to date on everything with the ICM newsletter!

My colleagues and I, at the International Advisory Committee of ICM 2022, will work to make sure the ICM follows the best practices in every aspect of its organization. Please contact us with your suggestions, ideas, and concerns. It is great that the ICM is coming to the Baltic Shores, let’s together make this ICM a real celebration of mathematics!

While the ICM itself is only 9 days long, I invite all participants to plan for a longer visit, participate in an ICM satellite, and discover Russia’s history and natural beauty. There is so much to discover! With my colleagues, I am planning to organize an ICM satellite meeting on geometric group theory and related topics, and hope to gather all the world experts in one stunning location!

Mathematics and computation is absolutely central to how our world works today. At Yandex, we understand this and are very happy to partner with the ICM organizers on many projects, especially to emphasize the real-world aspects of mathematics at the ICM. It is fantastic that the world brightest mathematical minds are gathering in Russia. On behalf of Yandex, the largest IT company in Europe, welcome!

Russia and St. Petersburg in particular are highly experienced in organizing large-scale international events as exemplified by the 2018 World Cup. Almost a million soccer fans visited the country for the World Cup, and they all had a wonderful time supporting their teams and discovering Russia for themselves. Like the FanID for the World Cup, ICM registration will function as a visa, making getting to Russia and around St. Petersburg smooth and convenient. On behalf of the ICM 2022 Executive Organizing Committee, welcome to our city!

As the youngest member of the Local Organizing Committee, I would like to encourage young mathematicians from Russia and the whole world to come to ICM 2022. It’s going to be amazing! If you are still learning mathematics, no problem — you can come as an ICM volunteer and contribute to the success of the ICM while being an important part of the world’s greatest math event. If you are already on your way to a research career in mathematics, there will be 1,300 grants to support your local expenses in St. Petersburg in partnership with your home country organizations.

2022 will be declared the Year of Mathematics in the Russian Federation. My colleagues and I envision it filled with a whole spectrum of outreach events aimed at students, teachers, and the general public of all ages. We hope to spark a love for mathematics in everyone. There will be lots of events, large and small, and if you have an idea for an event in your school or home town, then keep in mind that your initiative is 99% of its success! By the way, can you find the Pythagorean theorem on this web page?

Mathematics grows like a tree, and the seeds planted in St. Petersburg bore fruit across the vast expanse of Russia and its many neighboring countries. I want to send a very special welcome to everyone who considers themselves a part of the great mathematical tradition. Hoping to see you all in St. Petersburg! Let’s make our reunion an important part of the St. Petersburg ICM. I also want to invite the whole mathematical diaspora to play a very active role in the preparation for and the ICM itself as well as the ICM satellites and all the various events that are part of the Year of Mathematics taking place in Russia in 2022. It is important to continue the tradition.