GOLDEN TURTLE'S 20TH ANNIVERSARY CONTEST SETS RECORD FOR NUMBER OF PHOTOGRAPHERS

The 20th anniversary edition of the Golden Turtle International Creative Contest has closed its call for entries, bringing together 3,825 authors from 114 countries, who submitted 15,503 works — the highest result in the contest’s history. Over the past two decades, Golden Turtle has become one of the leading international platforms uniting artists, photographers, and designers working with the theme of wildlife. In total, the contest has received more than 217,000 works from 45,000 authors across 161 countries. The nature photography competition remains the largest and most prominent category, showing particularly strong momentum this year. A total of 2,564 photographers from 100 countries submitted 12,721 images, marking a +5% increase in both participants and submissions. The most popular categories were: Animals in the Environment — 2,224 entries Animal Behaviour — 1,713 entries The Portrait of the Animal — 1,706 entries Landscape — 1,637 entries The highest number of photographers came from Russia, China, India, the United States, and Italy. The painting competition also demonstrated positive growth, with 573 artists from 47 countries submitting 1,028 works (+13% in participants). The юбилейный edition introduced a renewed structure: replacing the former categories Animal Portrait and Animal in Nature, three new categories were launched: Animal in Nature — 245 entries The Animal and Its World — 377 entries The Living as Symbol — 164 entries The most active participants came from Russia, Turkey, China, Iran, and the United States. The eco-poster competition confirmed the growing interest in environmental themes within visual arts. It brought together 688 designers from 67 countries, who submitted 1,754 works — a +4% increase in submissions. Entries were distributed across the categories as follows: Ecological problems — 1,121 works Conservation of wild nature — 633 works The leading countries by number of participants were China, Russia, Iran, Taiwan, and the United States.