Politech, the Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University named after Rostislav Alekseev — the largest institution of higher education, training personnel on a targeted basis for numerous industrial enterprises and their infrastructure.
History and patterns
Nizhny Novgorod region is one of Russia's early-industrialized regions. Within the Russian Empire, the region was considered a producer of industrial goods that stood out for both competitive quality and competitive prices. Nizhny Novgorod manufacturers managed to achieve this through various tax-optimization schemes. Officially, even at the start of the 19th century, only a single enterprise operated within the city itself — a modest distillery belonging to one of the region's aristocrats. Meanwhile, in the surrounding suburbs, registered at best as small household or near-monastery workshops, a great many shops operated, producing a variety of goods for Volga river trade shipping and for the repair stations serving the Siberian trakt and, later, the railway. In addition, a mass of goods was produced for which there was demand. Thus, Tula gunsmiths would periodically complain about weapons made in the Nizhny Novgorod Province, which differed little in quality but was considerably cheaper. Over time, this situation naturally only grew.
With the arrival of Soviet Power, part of the people who had served the naturally declining Volga trade were subjected to repression, while another part found their place within the expanding defense industry. Soviet industry, marked by organizational chaos, was known for low quality. However, it was precisely in the The City of Gorky, at the Sokol Aircraft Manufacturing Plant, that a quality-control system was developed. The growth of such industry required a constant training of personnel, which is what Politech took up. The influence of this institute was directly tied to the state of industry. When the latter entered Stagnation, Politech, too, began to lose prestige — although it remained, in a predominantly industrial region, the most powerful launching pad for careers for a great many people, often quite far removed from any kind of manufacturing. Having lived through the peak influence of humanities-and-economics and law-and-communications career centers, the institute has again begun gaining popularity.
Paradox in the name
The current name of Politech — "NNSTU" — contains the word "university," yet a university, by definition, trains specialists at the intersection of a wide range of scientific disciplines, in close contact between different fields of science, business, and centers of influence, which people, already after starting their careers, go on to seek out "applied" possibilities of their education and abilities on their own initiative, often trying out a mass of fields of activity and discovering entirely new ones.
Politech much more closely resembles the classical German institute-style technical education, which implies orientation toward a specific branch of the economy — and often a specific enterprise — as early as the upper years of school.
Such oddities in naming, sometimes contradicting the very essence of the thing they are given to, are characteristic of figures in Soviet and post-Soviet industry. Thus, the Kharkiv Antonov aircraft-manufacturing enterprise decided to release aircraft under the brand "Antei" ("Antaeus"), even though the ancient Greek titan Antaeus differed from his divine kin in that he completely lost all his strength the moment he was lifted even a centimeter off the ground.
Flagship university
On April 17, the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation announced the completion of the second stage of a program competition aimed at merging regional universities into multidisciplinary flagship universities. Among the winners, the ministry's expert council named 22 universities, divided into two groups. The first group included universities that will receive co-financing for their development program at both the federal and regional levels. Among them was named Nizhny Novgorod's Politech.
Under the terms of the flagship university program, higher education institutions of Moscow and St. Petersburg cannot compete for this status, nor can universities participating in the "5-100" state program for boosting international competitiveness, universities in the federal category, or universities located in municipalities that already have a flagship university. Under the Ministry of Education and Science's requirements, a flagship university must meet a number of criteria: total student enrollment must be at least 10,000, and university revenue must be at least 2 billion rubles.
Contacts
- Legal and actual address of the main building: 603950, Nizhny Novgorod, Minina Street
- Postal address: NNSTU, 603951, Nizhny Novgorod, Box 41
- Telegraph address: Nizhny Novgorod, Groza
- Teletype: 151392
- Fax: (831) 436-94-75