MOSCOW, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Paulina Karimov, a curly-haired Russian girl with a smiling face, was explaining the lucky number in Chinese culture to the judges.

"The number 'eight' in Chinese has the same pronunciation with the verb 'enrich', that's the reason it became a lucky number. Am I right?"

Wearing a gorgeous red Chinese gown, the young college student impressed the judges with her decent Mandarin, quick mind and large "database" in Chinese culture.

Karimov is one of the 25 students from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Far East regions who took part in the Chinese Bridge contest on Sunday.

Hosted by Chinese National Hanban or Confucius headquarters and Moscow State Linguistic University, the three-hour competition in a concert hall had roused storms of applause and cheers from college students, gray-headed local people and toddlers in front of the stage.

Karimov's Chinese teacher said she had once performed on the stage of the Chinese Spring Festival Gala with Dashan, a well-known Canadian proficient in Chinese.

The girl has been to China for several times and was fascinated by the Chinese culture "the first time she arrived there." However, due to fierce competition, she failed to enter the final contest, which will be held in Beijing in July.8 Alexander Sboyev, 22, the champion of the contest, performed tongue twister, Chinese crosstalk and a sitcom with his teammates.

By imitating cartoon figures from the popular Chinese series Happy Sheep and Gray Wolf, Sboyev, who had been to China for many times, won the hearts and minds of the audience and judges.

Sboyev will join the top winners of the competitions in other countries for the semifinal and final contests in Beijing.

Anastasi Troshin, the second-place winner of the contest, recited a poem "What is motherland" written by renowned contemporary Chinese writer Lu Yao in the talent show section.

"What is motherland? She is the mountain, the ocean, the forest and the grassland; She is the meditation of Confucius, Lao Tzu and Zhuang Tzu; She is the poem by Qu Yuan, Li Bai and Lu You ..."

Her emotional intonation resonated with both Russian and Chinese audience.

The Chinese Bridge contest, first held in 2002 by Hanban, was designed as a platform for foreign Chinese learners to showcase their language proficiency and cultural intimacy.

Hanban officials said that so far, more than 100 Confucius Institutes have been established around the world, with some 50 million foreigners learning Chinese globally.

In Russia, nearly 20 Confucius Institutes and three Confucius classrooms have opened from the extreme southeast Far Eastern city of Vladivostok to Kazan along the Volga River, with more than 40 universities and about 20 middle and primary schools having listed Chinese as their first foreign language.

Irina Khaleeva, the president of Moscow State Linguistic University, praised the contest as a cultural bridge connecting young people from Russia and China.

According to Chinese Ambassador to Russia Li Hui, some 2,000 Russian students went to China for advanced study in 2010.

The ambassador congratulated competitors for their outstanding performance and encouraged more young Russian students to come to China and learn Chinese.

Sboyev, the fourth grade student from Russia's Far East Federal University, told Xinhua after the contest that he might take the scholarship to China's northeastern Heilongjiang University for further study.

"I may choose to be an interpreter after graduation to contribute to cultural exchanges between China and Russia," he said.