Society

At the beginning of April, the International Friendship Club “Gornyak” traditionally holds its interethnic festival at the Mining Multifunctional Complex. This year, the event brought together 800 participants from 15 countries around the world. It united representatives of the republics of the Russian Federation—Dagestan, Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan—as well as participants from Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Turkmenistan, Tanzania, Belarus, and the countries of Latin America.

Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University cooperates with colleagues from the Islamic Republic across a dozen areas. These include general academic internships for students, “summer schools” and programs devoted to the study of culture and history, joint cross-publication of scholarly articles, and regular seminars.

Students of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University won the All-Russian competition for GIS project presentations “My Smart City.” Dozens of teams from universities across Russia, representing the fields of geology, ecology, mining, construction, transport process technology, cadastral registration, and land management, presented their geoinformation solutions designed to make cities more comfortable, safer, and more efficient.

Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University took part in the Russia–Vietnam Forum “Engineering Education, Science and Technology for Industrial Development”, held in Hanoi on September 21–24.

Who is a metallurgist? The recently celebrated professional holiday is a good opportunity to reflect on the essence of the profession. Under the 1834 Charter of the Institute of the Corps of Mining Engineers, the training of metallurgists was included among the mining specialties. Nothing has fundamentally changed to this day. A metallurgist remains a specialist responsible for the final stage of the technological process of obtaining the end product from mineral raw materials.

The Sablino–Mining Research and Education Centre for Technological Sites was visited on a working trip by Dmitry Bratynenko, Chairman of the Government of the Republic of Komi.

Fifty high school students from schools in the Belgorod and Kursk regions — participants in the University Shifts educational and career guidance project — have arrived at Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University. This is already the University’s second group of “temporary students” this year.

At Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University, Summer Schools for senior students from Donetsk National Technical University (DonNTU) have concluded. Similar short-term educational programmes are held at the University annually with the support of the International Competence Centre for Mining Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO. Upon completing the two-week programme, all participants passed an assessment and received certificates of completion in a formal ceremony.

One of the reasons for Russia’s defeat in the 1905 war with Japan was the poor quality of artillery shells. Two years before the outbreak of World War I, the War Ministry of the Russian Empire addressed the problem by establishing the Central Scientific and Technical Laboratory under the Main Artillery Directorate. Today, it is the Mendeleev Central Research Institute of Materials (CNIIM).

Today, a major research project is being carried out in the Komi Republic, within the Timan-Pechora oil and gas province: the drilling of ultra-deep wells with a planned bottom-hole depth of at least 2,000 metres below the Devonian deposits. The project was initiated by Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University. Its objective is to study thermodynamic processes in the Earth’s crust beneath the Devonian deposits.