Note: the dialogue in this Sidequest is a loose translation of Russian dialogue outside of the actual quiz bowl games, which are held in English.

Volgograd, early December 2035. The Southern Russia NAV (for natsional'nyye akademischeskiye viktoriny, a loose translation to Russian of NAQT, which is also the name of the resulting TV show) auditions for the high school division are almost finished and they played quiz bowl for an entire morning, with, in the high school divisions, Voronezh #12 locked in a tie-breaker game for fourth place against Kursk #37, the winner of which goes on to the playoff rounds and hence on TV as well as to the HSNCT, given the size of the field. After a nail-biting tie-breaker game...

"And that's the game. Kursk number thirty-seven wins, three hundred to two hundred seventy!" the moderator rules.

Oh crap, we lost our last shot at competing on the international quiz bowl stage! the chaperone of Voronezh #12's team, or the Unpaid Bills, muses, while realizing the implications of this loss. For some reason the plans for the oblast to have their own team for the World Cup qualifiers fell through, anchored by our own two girls, and no other oblasts wanted either one to team up with us. The team then returns home empty-handed despite finishing fifth out of a field of 24 teams.

"Does this mean our quiz bowl season is over?" Irina asks her coach.

"No. And we still have four ChGK tournaments left, plus some brain ring tournaments" her coach responds.

"We still have the Tripartite Invitational next month as our last chance to qualify for the HSNCT" one of Irina's teammates retorts.

"Just... forget about attending the Tripartite Invitational because we can't afford to go to Vladivostok for it" the Unpaid Bills coach sternly responds to their kids.

"Is there any other "second chance" tournament we could attend for another shot at the HSNCT that are closer to us? Online even?" Sania, the other female Unpaid Bill, asks the coach.

"No unless we host it ourselves. We may as well host a middle school second chance tournament on the same day" 

Let's not kid ourselves. If we hosted a tournament that schools that were shut out of going on TV would attend, the field would be weaker than at the auditions. As for the other two intellectual games, we take about 14-16 questions per tournament in ChGK this season, so while we might be good, we aren't quite good enough for a shot at the oblast championship, the coach muses on the way home to Voronezh.

On Monday, the teacher responsible for the intellectual games club is summoned to the principal's office, with some questions about why NAQT was suddenly interested in Voronezh #12 despite losing a tiebreaker which saw the school fail to qualify for the HSNCT.

"What is the meaning of this?" the principal asks the teacher, pointing at an email from NAQT and believing the intellectual games club prompted the email. "I don't understand what is it that NAQT is asking from us!"

The quiz bowl coach then proceeds to read the email from NAQT because the principal's English reading proficiency is just not very good. All she could make out was NAQT's letterhead.

"NAQT is asking us for our enrollment data, as well as additional questions about enrollment policy" the quiz bowl coach answers, on the defensive.

"What reasons could NAQT have to even ask all these questions?" the principal asks the quiz bowl coach.

"NAQT is not familiar with the Russian education system, after all, it's the first season Russia even held quiz bowl tournaments with NAQT rules and questions"

Yet it appears that the same scene is happening at other schools placing in the next lower 15% at the auditions. Such as Moscow #263, also fifth but in the Central Russia auditioning section, which featured a field of 26 rather than 24. Or Bryansk #3.

"Personally, I don't think it's about how we stack up to the West in terms of curricular content, it's the one thing they accept readily. But here are the questions from NAQT" the quiz bowl coach then proceeds in answering NAQT's questions.

NAQT's questions include the enrollment across the topmost 3 grades offered, whether at least one between grades 9-12 is offered, whether it's the neighborhood school for the zone, whether it can turn down students living in the zone, whether the school is public or private and, finally, whether it includes an academically selective magnet program that draws students from outside its zone.

NAQT will then realize soon enough that most schools in the Russian quiz bowl circuit are neighborhood schools that are unable to turn down students living in the zone and hence are required to accept everyone, cover all grades from preschool to 11th grade, and also typically don't exceed 500 students across grades 9-11. And Voronezh #12 doesn't even have 300 students enrolled in grades 9-11.

The remaining schools are usually private or specialized schools, typically with an enrollment below 350 for grades 9-11. Only a handful of quiz bowl-playing Russian schools are larger than 500 for grades 9-11, such as Moscow #1535, the winners of the Central Russia sectional tournament and widely regarded as the best Russian team currently entered into the HSNCT.

"You must realize NAQT is the closest thing quiz bowl has to an international federation. They must have good reason for asking this of us. Maybe an alternative tournament"

Once the intellectual games coach replies to NAQT, using the principal's email, their response arrives the following day and the coach is happy that Voronezh #12's dreams of international competition would finally come true, albeit not under the form of the HSNCT or the World Cup. At the intellectual games practice that day...

"Today's first ChGK practice question: what international quiz bowl tournament places enrollment-based restrictions on who can qualify for it?" The coach asks the players.

"I never heard of any international quiz bowl tournament placing restrictions on how big a school can be and still qualify for it" Vassili starts talking.

"International quiz bowl tournaments are PACE NSC, HSNCT, the World Cup and NASAT. We can immediately rule out the HSNCT, NASAT and the World Cup" Irina reasons "so it's either the PACE NSC or some other tournament we don't know about"

Why is it that the Kremlin is so fixated on the M/HSNCT for coed competitions? What makes PACE NSC or NASAT less appealing to the RUQB? Sounds like it's about the size of the fields, Irina muses while she vaguely heard about how some local Western quiz bowl circuits separated championship brackets by school size.

"Size appears to be the main thing in use for limiting tournament qualification. Something something small school" Sania adds to what the other two said.

"The sixty seconds are up, but it looks like we are going to play quiz bowl internationally after all! NAQT issued us an invitation to attend the SSNCT, or Small Schools National Championship Tournament. I won't mince words, it will be expensive: it will cost us over a million rubles to attend. We can always ask the RUQB for funding to attend the SSNCT, but we need a fundraising plan" the coach announces the team.

"We host our own second chance NAQT tournament using the questions of the college division of the Tripartite Invitational and, later in the season, the oblast championship, which, unlike the NAQT second chance tournament, will use Krasnaya Armiya questions" Irina suggests, without having the slightest clue about what hosting a tournament implies.

"Speaking of Krasnaya Armiya, we can always try writing questions, and do so to supplement our review for the USEs. They always talk about how they are willing to get crowdsourced questions" Irina's teammate speaks about an alternative plan for fundraising.

"I'll go beg money from the RUQB, while the principal can go beg money from the city council" the coach announces to the team.

Most of the questions Krasnaya Armiya does get are in Russian, be it for ChGK, brain ring, or quiz bowl, and hence the Red Army places a premium on English-language questions, ChGK or quiz bowl. What the hell is going on at NAQT if they think we somehow go to a small school? Irina ponders while she never thought of Voronezh #12 as small.

"We should tutor other kids, too; after all, people in our neighborhood think that, based on our performances in intellectual games and subject olympiads, we are smart enough to help lesser kids" Sania points out.

The coach wastes no time putting out an announcement on NAQT as well as on the brain ring message boards, regarding the Chernozem Invitational, and soon teams from all over European Russia bombard the coach with emails about their interest in registering. Moscow #263 wants to enter three 4-player teams? Most schools struggle to get six players for ChGK in the 10-11th grades bracket, from what is typically 70-100 students per grade, but Moscow #263 only offers 10-11th grades. Even so they have only about 400 students to draw 12 players from. So we may as well enter two teams, provided we have two of the ninth-graders play quiz bowl with the 10-11th graders, the coach muses, and that was only the first email from coaches, even fielding potential entries from as far away from Voronezh as St. Petersburg.

But he realizes that several potential entrants are from schools that narrowly missed out on the MSNCT or HSNCT at the NAV auditions. Such as Bryansk #3, which is in the same position as Moscow #263 but for the MSNCT, and the first three confirmed schools are Bryansk #3, Moscow #263 and Voronezh #12, in alphabetical order.

"I hope you considered the possibility that some players could be competing in subject olympiads at the oblast level" Irina points out to her teammates.

"Don't worry about that, Irina. It's the same scheduling problem for all intellectual games. Speaking of oblast level, good luck if any of you is competing" Yuri makes his wish.

"Thank you"

As in the West, Russian quiz bowl players often compete in subject olympiads; however, subject olympiads have a much greater reach in Russia than in the West, since the vast majority of schools compete in at least one, and, in most regions, teachers tend to select their best 3 for the raion stage. On the other hand, in the West, subject olympiads are much more niche and only a somewhat limited fraction of schools will enter any given subject olympiad (but many quiz bowl-playing schools will enter at least one).

While it's not unheard of for a student, and maybe a quiz bowler or two, to enter as many as four subject olympiads at the raion level, if and once someone competes at the oblast level, students were often expected to focus on a single subject.

Usually top-3 per raion, in the Voronezh oblast, and raions in Voronezh proper send 3 students each to the oblast stage, plus any discretionary slot for people scoring above a certain threshold, for a maximum of 5% of the number of raion-level participants competing at the oblast level, if 120 students amount to less than 5% of the total oblast-wide pool of raion-level entrants for a given subject.

"And, of course, loose change drives at church for the more religious of us" the Voronezh #12 A-team history/RPMSS player, Vassili, suggests to his team. "Amen"

Irina and her intellectual games teammates begin implementing their plans for raising funds in earnest: for the history/RPMSS player, begging for money on Sundays during mass, or more specifically before the mass proper begins, believing older and/or wealthier people would attend mass, as well as after a mass ends:

"God wanted us to compete internationally in quiz bowl! Could you please help us accomplish God's will, with a little loose change?" Vassili acts as a beggar.

"What's quiz bowl?" a churchgoer asks the history/RPMSS player acting as a beggar.

"An intellectual game, like a faster form of brain ring, but quiz bowl instead asks your four-player team a set of three bonus questions only your team can answer if you answer a tossup question correctly. If you want a better idea of how it plays out, you could watch NAV..."

The same scene repeats with the history/RPMSS player having to explain multiple times to a variety of churchgoers about how Voronezh #12 was poised to play for Russia at the SSNCT, where the SSNCT even fits in the world of international quiz bowl tournaments, and even where Voronezh #12 stands not only oblast-wide, but also nationwide. The quiz bowl oblast championship is Voronezh #12's to lose at this point, Vassili muses, while he looks at his jar containing some coins in small denominations, returning home, and putting it aside in a different jar labeled "SSNCT Fund" that he must keep track of after every mass he attends.

Meanwhile, one of the literature/fine arts players, Yuri, is holed up in his room, writing an English-language packet of quiz bowl questions. His parents ask him why he is writing packets of questions, with parts of these being bolded, and the bolded parts end with (*).

"Can you please tell me why some of the text is bolded and the rest of the text is not?" Yuri's mother asks him, not having read a single quiz bowl packet in her life, looking at the unfinished question packet.

"We auditioned for NAV and, because we couldn't make it on TV, and hence to the HSNCT, the coach punished us by making us write questions for a quiz bowl tournament. If a team answers the tossup correctly before the referee gets to the end of the bolded part, the team gets five extra points, and usually it's after two clues. I guess, you want to ref the tournament these questions are to be used in?" Yuri answers his mother.

"I feel you're hiding something" Yuri's father sternly asks him.

"We're going to represent Russia at the SSNCT! None of the other schools from Southern Russia playing at the HSNCT are in our oblast, though" Yuri answers his father.

"So we were told that whoever was playing on NAV would represent Russia at the HSNCT but what's the SSNCT?" his father asks his son.

"It's organized by NAQT also, just like the HSNCT, but it's limited to certain schools, and ours is somehow, for international quiz bowl, a very small school"

What my parents don't realize is the questions I am writing won't be used at the oblast championship later this season, much less at the Chernozem Invitational, Yuri thinks while the Chernozem Invitational will be using NAQT questions, and NAQT provides the questions for free to Voronezh #12 to host it.

Or rather, NAQT provides questions Russia-wide for free at all levels since it's the first season for which there actually are Russian tournaments using NAQT questions to begin with. Which leads the coach to hit a wall in that every classroom in the school will be used to host the Chernozem Invitational, and therefore he can only have as many teams for the tournament as there are classrooms. So he is forced to turn away both St. Petersburg schools that were interested in attending, in favor of closer schools.

Meanwhile, Irina, in a tutoring session with one of the wealthier, but less-talented students, had an idea that might sound a little bizarre to some, especially because the tutee's parents is making an offer to her:

"My son is in trouble in class, we need some additional assistance" the tutee's parents ask Irina.

"Are you suggesting you want me to help your son cheat? Parents never asked me directly for such help. It's going to cost you" Irina issues her warning.

Maybe... maybe I can field offers from other students I tutored in STEM subjects so that I can help them cheat, provided they are in my group! And I can use the "cheating money" to fund our trip to the SSNCT! Irina thinks while she senses an opportunity, and also because she feels like she paid the implicit costs of her own academic prowess, like so many on intellectual games teams across the country, under the form of being the target of cheating attempts. She then calls on her teammates of all grades one by one on VK's instant messaging: "I have an idea: beyond just tutoring students, maybe we can sell cheating rights on tests! The money earned from cheating rights will be used to pay for our trip to the SSNCT"

To which Vassili responds, "I already beg money at church. What makes you think selling cheating rights will actually net you some money?" He doesn't suspect that other quiz bowlers from around the world regularly get asked for cheating help on tests - after all, your typical quiz bowler is a high-achieving student excelling at least in their respective areas of quiz bowl specialty.

"I don't want you to think it's going to be a one-shot deal. You seem to act as if my son was willing to cheat only once" the parent senses Irina's potential misunderstanding.

"Of course not. If you want me to help your son cheat, I want to make sure you understand that any assistance I will provide will be year-round and then you will be billed for the rest of the year, the invoice will arrive soon enough" Irina tries to clear up the confusion.

"If I am going to be billed for my son to cheat on you in tests, I want to make sure I know how much this is going to cost"

"All sales of cheating services are final. This is going to run for seventy-five thousand rubles. I'm aware of how important the USEs are but cheating on the USEs is included in the price"

Irina then wastes no time preparing a bill to the tutee's parents and with payment terms of net 30 days, with an invoice template that she can use to bill other tutees in her section for tutoring and/or cheating services. She then thinks of other regular tutees in her section, and she then offers cheating for hire.

At the same time, the coach checks the bank account of the team for any deviation from the amounts charged to the schools for entering the Chernozem Invitational, and it turns out that a school seems to have sent a separate payment. Bryansk #3. Why is it that they paid us twice when we only billed them once? We billed Bryansk #3 for the middle school division and for the high school division on a single bill, for 10,000 rubles per team, times 4 teams total! Did they make a good faith mistake, in which case we refund one, or did they make the second payment of 40k rubles to ask something else of us? the coach muses while he sends out an email to the Bryansk #3 principal. Only once he clears up the confusion about Bryansk #3 overpaying will he pay NAQT for Voronezh #12's SSNCT entry.

The following week, which is the last week before the holidays, the coach has the following announcement to make, regarding their quest for SSNCT fundraising:

"The news is: the city council will give us no money unless we win the oblast quiz bowl championship, and even then, they will match ruble for ruble only the profits from hosting the oblast quiz bowl championship. As for the RUQB, they will pay only if we make it to the M/HSNCT at any second chance tournament, and only for the M/HSNCT; we will receive nothing from the RUQB if we only go to the SSNCT. Before we continue practicing, I would like to know what progress you made in fundraising" the coach asks his players.

"I only managed to collect four thousand rubles from begging at church" Vassili announces them.

"Krasnaya Armiya only pays freelance question writers once per month, and I didn't receive a single kopeck of it yet" Yuri adds.

"Seventy-five thousand rubles for me" Irina announces, while she awaits on the answer from other regular tutoring customers for the "cheating package" she sold to one of them.

"I earned only six thousand from tutoring" Sania then answers, after Irina talks about the comparatively fabulous haul.

The people in lower ChGK divisions, as well as the 10th graders on the quiz bowl B-team, also contribute somewhat limited amounts of money through tutoring or advance cheating arrangements. All told, as of the holiday break, they only managed to raise 100k from sources other than tournament hosting.

The answer from Bryansk #3 arrives during practice. "We're paying you to host a ChGK tournament on top of the quiz bowl one. We'll even supply additional referees for the quiz bowl tournament, under the form of players' parents, and I'll ref games personally."

Now, we must ask the schools already entered in the tournament whether they want to stay for an evening, inter-oblast ChGK tournament, in which case they will be billed for ChGK separately, the coach ponders, realizing that most quiz bowl entrants also play ChGK, and he expects some entrants to play extra for inter-oblast play.

"It appears that we are charging extra to other schools in the quiz bowl tournament to compete in ChGK at night. How do you feel about inter-oblast ChGK play, as opposed to just quiz bowl?" the coach asks his players.

"Our first three tournaments were mostly played with teams from elsewhere in the city, with its neighboring raions. No out-of-oblast teams. But even though ChGK is different from quiz bowl, it's like inter-oblast quiz bowl in that the Chernozem Invitational, from what I have seen, its field appears to be mostly top-heavy in their respective oblasts, or at least raions"

Kind of like how Bryansk #3 is at the top of its oblast's middle school quiz bowl circuit, as well as in ChGK in the 8-9th grades division. Or its raion for high school quiz bowl. Or Voronezh #12 sits atop the raion for all brackets of ChGK as well as at the top of the oblast in quiz bowl for both divisions.

Maybe tacking on a ChGK evening tournament would make our goal of paying for the SSNCT a reality without having to host additional quiz bowl tournaments! the coach thinks while most teams appear interested to stay for the night and play ChGK mostly because of inter-oblast ChGK play, and hence billed accordingly. Just not at the rates Bryansk #3 paid for its ChGK participation, since there wasn't a need to have referees on hand. Which, to the eyes of some, is a good practice for those teams wanting to play at the nationwide festival and that can realistically get a regional top 3. Festival because there are more intellectual games being played there than just ChGK.

"I'm sure there is someone in social studies that might need divine academic assistance (that is, cheating) for a price" Irina whispers in Vassili's ear. "Surely you could provide it to someone in your section!"

"You begin to sound like a Catholic indulgence vendor during the late Middle Ages!" Vassili retorts, upon hearing Irina talk about selling cheating services as if it was a divine product. Which drives him to write a tossup on the sale of indulgences by Catholic clergy.

"We have all been paying an implicit price for our academic performances in our areas of intellectual gaming specialty, under the form of cheating attempts in class. Don't go around thinking our opponents, either domestically or at the SSNCT, are not targeted by cheating attempts in the classroom!" Irina comments as to why Vassili could have been a supplier of cheating.

"Of course, Irina, everyone at the SSNCT is as smart as we are" Yuri comments about the implicit costs paid by quiz bowlers in class.

"That's what makes the SSNCT so special to us, that's why we had you play in these inter-oblast tournaments! You can't grow as students if we just stick to the raion!" the coach then adds to this discussion.

Quiz bowlers aren't necessarily good all-around academically, and neither are subject olympiad contestants, even though both are drawn among high-achieving students, here or in the West, Sania reflects on the academic prowess of even SSNCT contestants. Their players leave the room so the coach wouldn't overhear them.

"Maybe... if you are in the first section to go through a test for a given subject, we could sell what you call divine academic assistance to other sections!" Sania suggests, after having heard Irina talk about selling cheating services on tests.

"If you want to do this, time is of the essence" a B-team high school player warns the other players. "We must have a clear understanding of the questions and the answers before we can actually help students cheat"

"Please keep these under wraps, please do not disclose your involvement in the sale of cheating services to anyone not directly involved" Vassili pleads with the players.

"I think our customers will understand. Discretion is the better part of valor when you use or supply cheating for hire" Irina continues talking about the need for confidentiality.

What's obvious to them is that lower grades don't feel the pressure to cheat as much as the upper grades, so relying on middle schoolers to earn any cheating revenue is not a good idea. So while Irina spends the holidays studying for the oblast round of the Chemistry olympiad, the other 10th and 11th graders on the intellectual games club focus instead on peddling "cheating for hire", especially since none of the other Unpaid Bills who entered subject olympiads qualified for the oblast stage. And, of course, study for quiz bowl as well as their own coursework.

Speaking of coursework, one of the mathematics tests conducted right after the Chemistry oblast olympiad, which Irina lost, had the following happen, about two-thirds of the way through, with Irina being nearly finished. She is coughing as well as sneezing; after all, winter in Voronezh is cold:

"I need to go to the bathroom, please..." Irina asks, her hand raised, and she is about to sneeze for the umpteenth time in the test, while having exhausted her supply of Kleenex tissues.

This is the signal for my other classmates to start copying the answers from me! Irina starts thinking while the students who bought cheating services from her rush out from their seats, and to Irina's desk, once the proctor leaves the room with an apparently sick Irina in tow. This is the first real test of whether this entire plan of using cheating-for-hire as a revenue source for us is going to work; I had a couple of the wealthier kids buy cheating services from me for math and chemistry to varying extents, she thinks, while realizing that her customers are hard at work copying, and her headaches mount.

The more she sneezes and coughs, the more her head seems to hurt, and she then washes her hands before picking up toilet paper. And she needs to drink from the fountain once she is able to get enough toilet paper to replenish her supply so that her headaches could subside after drinking some water.

Once she has finished drinking what she feels is necessary to calm her headaches, she returns to the classroom, at a somewhat slow pace, so as to maintain her cover of sickness as well as buy her customers more time. Because every second counted for them until she returns to her desk. Yet there had to be some signal for the customers to return to their desks. Such as a customer seeing the looming shadow of the pair closing in on their room.

That was a close call. The other five cheaters committed only to a trial run, and they would decide later whether to commit to cheating on me for the rest of the year, and they would then be billed if they accept, Irina keeps thinking before putting the finishing touches to the test's last question, and hand over her copy.

But the cheating revenues keep rolling in until right before the Chernozem Invitational is set to begin. Vassili realized by then that the people who paid the most at church between the holidays and the Chernozem Invitational were parents of students who hired him to cheat on tests, as well as papers, where they tally the revenue earned from selling tutoring-for-hire, cheating-for-hire (classified as special services in the team's books), church begging and question writing, starting with the 5th graders, of which there are two but none of them are playing quiz bowl.

"Before the tournament starts tomorrow, we would like to count the money we all raised one last time" the coach asks once more.

"Two thousand for me" the first 5th-grader answers.

It appears the middle schoolers (in Russia, middle school covers grades 5-9, but for NAQT, it's generally understood to mean grades 6-8) earned paltry sums of money even with the use of old-fashioned tutoring. All told, the middle schoolers (in a quiz bowl sense) were only able to earn 25k rubles from tutoring for the team, with actual quiz bowlers somehow earning more per capita than the 5th-graders. Not a single kopeck from cheating for hire. The ninth-grader cheater for hire is where the difference starts to show between who supplies cheating-for-hire and who doesn't.

"Ten thousand rubles in special services, another three thousand in tutoring" another ninth-grader player on the "high-school" quiz bowl B team announces after putting that amount into the team's piggy bank.

"From Krasnaya Armia, I received payments totalling thirteen thousand rubles, after taxes are withheld, and from special services, about thirty thousand" Yuri continues with his count.

"Forty-six thousand in special services for me" Sania continues, not willing to be outdone by her teammates.

Is that how it feels to corner the local market for cheating-for-hire? Vassili thinks, while he brought the heavy jar labeled "SSNCT Fund" for the entire 18-player intellectual games club to see, in all of its begging glory.

"OK, church beggar, how much did you manage to beg from the parishioners?" the coach asks Vassili.

"Seventeen thousand rubles, plus another thirty-one thousand rubles in special services" Vassili announces to his coach.

"One hundred and twenty-five thousand rubles for me in special services" Irina announces, realizing none of the others managed to net any year-long cheating deal.

Then the coach reviews the money earned from hosting the Chernozem Invitational as well as the cost of hosting it. Because hosting a quiz bowl tournament isn't free even though NAQT gave them questions for the quiz bowl portion for free, even with all the profits from this tournament, it may not be enough for them to attend the SSNCT. Once again, the players participating in cheating-for-hire leave the room to revise their plans.

"We will need to discontinue cheating on tests, and stick to cheating on homework and papers, especially for those assignments of any kind that allow resubmissions. So we will need to refund any payments already made for cheating services on future tests. That said, I'm the main one concerned" Irina draws a grim conclusion.

"Irina? Do you have an estimate on how much money you need to refund? It was too good to be true!" Sania admonishes her teammate.

Ouch. I never made any estimate on how much of the sales price was for cheating on tests as opposed to homework or papers, Irina thought while she proceeds to inform all her customers about the discontinuation of test cheating from her offerings as a cheater for hire, of which only one has actually booked any future test for her to perform cheating services. She then calls that customer's mother:

"Dobriy vyecher. (Good evening) It's about your son and the cheating services he purchased from me" Irina starts the call.

"What?" asks a surprised mother, who hitherto had complete confidence in Irina to help her son in school.

"There has been unforeseen changes in the delivery of cheating services, it seems like the scope of the cheating services must be restricted to homework and papers only. No further cheating on tests is possible. So I am in the obligation to refund you that part of the money" Irina explains herself.

"How much will I be refunded?"

"About forty thousand"

Irina then proceeds to refund the 40,000 rubles to the customer's mother, before she returns to the team to tell them the truth behind the refund she just made.

"It appears there has been some complications in my provision of these special services so the real amount I raised in special services is eighty-five thousand since I must refund forty thousand of the earlier amount. The total money we raised thus far, outside of tournament hosting, is three hundred thirty-five thousand. But I will make it back by the quiz bowl oblast championship!" 

"Knowing you, I'm sure you will earn it back" Sania comments on the game.

When the teams arrive from various locations in European Russia, on Saturday morning, they are assembled in the auditorium for the opening ceremony:

"Welcome to the city of Voronezh, and to the first Chernozem Invitational tournament! For the morning session, the teams are split into pools of six and will play each other twice. The top finishers of each preliminary pool, seeded so that no school will have more than one team in each pool, will then advance to a new stage, the playoff stage. The winners of the preliminary stage will qualify for the MSNCT or the HSNCT, depending on division. It's one of the rare occasions we have this season to hold inter-regional tournaments, quiz bowl by day, ChGK at night, two games as is standard practice for interscholastic tournaments. Please note that while RUQB provides funding to any school qualifying for either international tournament, it will not fund more than one team from the same school for the same tournament. And, if applicable, the SSNCT must be paid for on your own dime" the Voronezh #12 coach explains the tournament's procedures.

Notwithstanding that the SSNCT field is full by now, and not all that many schools attending actually harbor ambitions of international play, especially not the weaker schools we absolutely crushed in the auditions but still attend, nonetheless, the coach muses while the majority of the moderators are parents of players, and the best referees had experience of reffing brain ring or ChGK tournaments. But the English-language skills of some mods weren't always the best, so it was a little rough for those mods who struggled in English. The TD then gives the would-be moderators a meeting for an overview of the rules before the tournament proper begins, while the statisticians are students that did well in mathematics but didn't play intellectual games.

Five hours later, locked into another buzzer race, Voronezh #12 A is trailing by 25 points, and they are 8-1, playing against the other team with an 8-1 record, Derbent #9. So whoever wins that game will go on to the HSNCT, and the loser might be able to go on to the SSNCT if they could afford it, or would simply need to focus on playing intellectual games domestically. It's down to that one tossup, or else all the efforts we spent delivering cheating for hire and all that would be for naught! Irina muses while the final tossup is read by a moderator speaking English in a heavier Russian accent than she did. But Derbent #9 appeared less nervous.

"Tossup number twenty: Johann Tetzel was the Grand Commissioner responsible for this action in the dioceses of Magdeburg and Halberstadt. In 1567, Pope Pius V canceled all grants of this involving fees or other financial transactions" the moderator then reads the final question of the game.

Vassili accused me of acting like a Catholic indulgence vendor in the late Middle Ages when we started selling cheating for hire! Irina is reminded of that fact during a practice held before the holiday season, even though she knows nothing else about the Catholic Counter-Reformation, or even how the sale of indulgences were just one Reformation driver.

Simultaneously, some thoughts traverse Vassili. NAQT had a question on this exact same thing I wrote a tossup for Yuri to then submit to the Red Army? I didn't want to arouse suspicion, which is why I didn't buzz in when I heard about Tetzel! And then Irina buzzes in, a mere fraction of a second before he did.

"Indulgences!" Irina shouts after buzzing in.

"Fifteen. For ten points each, answer these questions about political fundraising..." the moderator proceeds to read the bonus.

The Derbent #9 players start panicking, since Voronezh #12 powered the final regulation tossup of this game. Plus, it was Irina's only history power all game. And then they convert one bonus part, which ties the game, but they fail to convert the second part. The final part is making everyone nervous, and as its reading starts, every Voronezh #12 player starts thinking about its answer, knowing it will decide what their future in international quiz bowl is made of.

"Citizens United gave rise to a new type of political financing vehicle in the United States" the moderator reads.

Our dreams of representing Russia on the international quiz bowl stage boil down to this one bonus! Fingers crossed that Voronezh #12 does not answer it correctly! a Derbent #9 player muses, powerless over their opponents' ability to answer the bonus, or lack thereof.

Super PACs came up in my research while writing these questions for the Red Army, Yuri muses while standing ready to give the answer to this bonus.

"Super PAC" Yuri answers at the end of the allotted time.

"Twenty points for the bonus, and that's the game. Final score: Voronezh number twelve, three hundred twenty, Derbent number nine, three hundred ten"

"Yes! HSNCT time!" Irina shouts, overjoyed that these five hours of playing quiz bowl ended up with Voronezh #12 finishing atop pool #7.

Five more hours later, the awards ceremony is held, after seventeen grueling rounds of quiz bowl, and the middle school division winners are announced:

"For the middle school division, in third place, Derbent number nine! In second place, Voronezh number twelve A!" the Voronezh #12 coach announces under the applause of the local crowd. "And the middle school winner of the Chernozem Invitational is... Bryansk number three A!"

While Derbent #9 is not going to attend the HSNCT, unless they attend or host some other tournament, at least they will attend the MSNCT, so their dreams of international quiz bowl aren't completely crushed. The middle school winners then receive medals. And then comes the high school division's awards ceremony.

"For the high school division, in third place, Bryansk number three A! In second place, Moscow number two hundred sixty-three A! And the high school winner of the Chernozem Invitational is... Voronezh number twelve A! May the winners of both divisions represent Russia well in international quiz bowl!"

"It might not be the most glamorous thing in the world, but here are the top scorers!" the statistician then tells the crowd.

Surprisingly, no Voronezh #12 player is to be found among the top 3 scorers for either division. And both Bryansk #3 as well as Voronezh #12 made out like bandits at this tournament, quiz bowl-wise; in ChGK, however, in the 10-11th grades division, Derbent #9 wins.

A few days later, the final payment for this tournament arrives and then they can happily keep studying and playing intellectual games for the rest of the year.

"OK... indulgence vendor, we finally reached our fundraising target!" the coach announces to the team, where two months of effort finally bear fruit.

And the team keeps selling cheating for hire on the black market, even though the revenue from the sales of cheating services no longer go towards funding their SSNCT trip.