The Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University was visited by the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Trương Thanh Hoài. This visit can be considered an "echo" of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Tô Lâm, in May 2025, when the leaders of the two countries adopted a Joint Declaration on the main directions of Russian-Vietnamese relations in the framework of comprehensive strategic partnership.
The interaction between the two countries is currently undergoing a new stage of development. In 2024, trade turnover grew by 20%. There is potential for increased trade in sectors such as oil refining, petrochemicals, energy, heavy industry, machine engineering, IT, and high technologies.
Additionally, in May, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized in his statement to the media that, during the negotiations, "as before, attention was paid to humanitarian issues and workforce training. This has always been one of the serious areas of our work. We see that Vietnamese society holds Russian-Vietnamese relations in high regard. We also greatly value this."
In light of the areas of interest for expanding long-term cooperation, the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of Vietnam visited Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University.
«During the Soviet era, your country provided us with invaluable assistance in development: until the 21st century, all machine tools and equipment for heavy industry came from here, and Vietnamese students studied based on the Soviet educational system. I myself studied in Hanoi under that 'old' system, equally mastering both theoretical foundations and practical skills, as well as the history of the development of science and technology. I spent a year learning Russian because I wanted to study in the USSR. However, after the war, in an effort to attract investment, the Republic opened its borders to all countries, and we collectively switched to English. As a result, serious problems have emerged in the field of higher education in Vietnam today», - said Truong Thanh Hoai.
According to him, students in the country follow the Bologna system and, by the time they graduate, lack any practical skills:
«When we learned about the new system proposed by your university, which provides these practical skills and additional competencies during the learning process, we became extremely interested in it».
The Rector of the Mining University, Vladimir Litvinenko, cited Germany as a historical example, which in the mid-1970s, amid growing globalization and the increasing influence of the United States, switched to English as the language of instruction.
«From that moment, the entire body of engineering thought in the country began to gradually decline. In fact, people’s minds are no longer governed by their native language and way of thinking, but by a borrowed Western mindset. Language is a vital component of the thought process. The introduction of a foreign language also brings with it an ideology. The optimal solution is to use one's native language in combination with knowledge of the languages of countries with which strategic cooperation is important», - the Rector emphasized.
He stressed that the St. Petersburg university is ready to support the development of partnership relations, open language centers, and train Vietnamese students in mining, extraction, and processing of mineral resources — but it will not do so in a “third language” on principle.
«We know that the Mining University is the oldest technical university in Russia, which for centuries has served as a cradle of personnel for the energy sector and a specialized engineering design hub. Institutions of such caliber are the foundation for industrial development in any country. Dozens of our citizens are already studying here, and we would like to increase this number. In addition to training specialists, our goal is to strengthen scientific and technical ties with the Russian side», - concluded Truong Thanh Hoai.
As part of the university tour and introduction to its research centers, the delegation showed particular interest in the Center for the Processing of Mineral and Technogenic Resources. Specifically, the Deputy Minister noted that Vietnam has large deposits of graphite with a high content of impurities, and local engineers are facing the challenge of intensifying extraction and obtaining purified raw materials.