The 29th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2026), held from June 3 to 6 at the ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Centre, confirmed its reputation as one of the most important platforms for global economic dialogue – a forum that has been called the "Russian Davos" and which has grown since its founding in 1997 into a gathering that drew over 24,500 participants from nearly 140 countries this year. As a student of International Business, attending SPIEF was not merely an extracurricular activity – it was, in the most direct sense, a live seminar on the forces reshaping the global economy.