As well as all other advancers to Yandex.Algorithm finals, I've got an e-mail from Yandex today.
I found some parts of the e-mail surprising.
"Yandex invites you to participate in the whole Summer School, and will compensate your airplane tickets, will provide all the accomodations onsite. You should buy your tickets, save the check and the boarding pass, and we will return your money onsite." (that alone perhaps would be fine)
"We (Yandex) like programming competitions a lot, and we respect the champions, but we don't take them as seriously as others, so there are some peculiarities you should know." (I wonder if "them" refers to champions, competitions or both)
"First, we didn't announce it and we are not going to give away big prizes for the champions, although we will give the winners some presents. We consider participation in our school and communication with other smart people our main present to the winners." (well, guys, thank you for doing us such a favour)
Is it just me or you also don't see much respect here?