Category: Moscow

Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –

An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

By the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation dated January 28, 2026, Boris Kondin, Head of the Directorate of Cultural Programs and Youth Creativity at SPbPU, was awarded the medal "For Work in Culture and Art."

During Boris Igorevich's 20 years at the Polytechnic University, the university's cultural life has reached a new level. The White Hall is now more than just a local university auditorium, but a city-wide concert venue, featured on the billboards alongside theaters and the philharmonic. The White Hall's repertoire annually includes up to 200 concerts, representing all genres of classical and contemporary music, literary evenings, and theatrical productions. Leading artists and musical groups from St. Petersburg, Russia, and abroad perform on the hall's stage. The hall's annual audience reaches 60,000 spectators.

The Polytechnic University is the only university in Russia where you can listen to organ music. Five years ago, thanks to the efforts of Boris Kondin, a three-manual Johannus organ was installed in the White Hall.

In addition to his regular concert activities, Boris Igorevich has been organizing major cultural and educational events since 2010: this includes a festival of Russian music and poetry that has gained immense popularity among city residents. Pushkin Days at the PolytechnicThe Easter Festival, the "Music in the Glitter of Uniforms" military brass band festival, featured performances by People's and Honored Artists of Russia, including Vasily Lanovoy, Alexander Filippenko, Alla Demidova, Veniamin Smekhov, Avangard Leontyev, Dmitry Dyuzhev, and Vasily Gerello. The Terem Quartet, the Valaam Monastery Choir, and the Alexander Nevsky Men's Choir also performed at the Easter Festival.

The All-Russian festival-competition of student choral groups from technical universities, "Blagovest," organized by Boris Kondin, includes 10 technical universities, including the Ural Federal University, the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, the Stieglitz St. Petersburg State Academy of Art and Design, Petrozavodsk State University, the Irkutsk National Research Technical University, and others.

Since 2019, the Polytechnic University, under the leadership of Boris Igorevich, has been hosting two large-scale joint events with the Committee for Science and Higher Education of St. Petersburg: International Festival "Golden Autumn" AndGovernor's New Year's Student Ball, to which 700 of the best students from all higher and secondary educational institutions in the Northern Capital are invited. Both receive extensive media coverage.

Student creativity has also reached unprecedented proportions. Today, the university has 14 active associations, attended by 700 Polytechnic students. Choirs, theaters, vocal, and dance studios are achieving success in professional competitions. At the initiative of Boris Igorevich, the university established the first technical university in Russia in 2014. student pop and symphony orchestra, who today already performs large solo concerts for residents and guests of the city.

"At the very beginning of my work, I found the materials about the music clubs and student orchestra operating under the Polytechnic's first director, Prince Andrei Grigorievich Gagarin, extremely valuable," says Boris Kondin. "Prince Gagarin's unique approach to the development of culture and student creativity was passed on to Rector Andrei Ivanovich Rudskoy, through whom the Polytechnic became a cultural hub."

Nineteen years ago, at the initiative of Boris Kondin, SPbPU introduced "Creative Semesters" for all first-year students. St. Petersburg Polytechnic University is the only university in the country that integrates the development of students' creative abilities into its curriculum, drawing on the best examples of global music, literature, and other arts. This is a unique project not only for Russia but also for global education.

In 2022, Boris Kondin organized a series of musical and dramatic performances in the White Hall. "Russia, don't be afraid, we are with you!" which explored the tragic events in Donbass through the texts of poets from the Great Patriotic War and contemporary poets living in the cities of Donbass.

In 2024, Boris Igorevich developed and implemented the educational project "Polytechnic University—A Territory of High Culture." Banners featuring quotes from great figures of the past and present were installed across the campus, and the university organized courses on the history of Russian culture, art, and literature—not only for students and staff of the Polytechnic University but also for city residents.

In October 2024, a new project was launched at the Polytechnic University on the initiative of Boris Kondin – "Musical Changes".

Do Polytechnicians know that Boris Igorevich is the author of the Polytechnic University anthem? This magnificent piece of music is played today at all official and ceremonial events at the university, and it is performed in concerts by members of choirs and the pop and symphony orchestra.

The Polytechnic University team is proud that Boris Kondin's multifaceted and long-standing work in creating a cultural space at the university and in St. Petersburg has received state recognition. We congratulate him on this achievement!

"It's a great pleasure to receive this prestigious award and share this joy with my small team, who, like me, believe in the value of culture. This award is an incentive to continue what we've started, to explore new forms, to support students' creative initiative, and to strengthen the university's role as a cultural and spiritual center," Boris Kondin shared.

In 2022, Boris Igorevich became the subject of the "Persona" column. Read the interview with Boris Igorevich onon the portal of the newspaper "Polytechnic".

Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source. It represents an accurate account of the source's assertions and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –

An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

The Central Museum of Railway Transport of the Russian Federation has opened an exhibition, "Russia Chooses Speed," dedicated to the history of high-speed rail in our country. Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University contributed to the exhibition's preparation.

The exhibition features a wide variety of high-speed train models—outstanding engineering achievements that were never realized: a 1933 model of a ball train, a model of S.S. Waldner's aerotrain, a model of a magnetic levitation train, and a model of the Sokol-250 high-speed train from the 1990s. Of course, the history of completed projects is also shown—the Aurora, Nevsky Express, and ER200 high-speed trains, and the Sapsan and Allegro high-speed trains. The exhibition also includes materials dedicated to the design and early construction of the Moscow-St. Petersburg high-speed railway.

One of the key issues in the development of high-speed and high-speed rail technology is the aerodynamics of rolling stock. Part of the exhibition is dedicated to the history of aerodynamic research in rail transport. In 1909, Nikolai Rynin established an aeromechanical laboratory at the Institute of Railway Engineers in St. Petersburg, where the effects of airflow on rolling stock were studied and the force of airflow pressure on bridge trusses was determined. The exhibition features rare models made by N. A. Rynin.

Then, in 1909, on the initiative of N. A. Rynin andDean of the Shipbuilding Department of the Polytechnic Institute Konstantin Boklevsky In 1910, aeronautics courses were founded and construction began on an aerodynamics laboratory at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. Vasily Slesarev was invited to organize the laboratory and further develop the courses. The laboratory's largest installation, to accommodate which part of the 1st Student Building was rebuilt in 1910, was a wind tunnel with a circular test section two meters in diameter. The tunnel was repeatedly reconstructed (most recently in 1956-1957). The history of the aeronautics courses at the Polytechnic Institute is detailed in the article "The First Higher Aviation School in Russia" by Ivan Povkh, head of the laboratory since 1935, after the creation of the Department of Hydroaerodynamics at the PhysMech Institute, published in the Proceedings of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (1948, No. 1).

In the mid-1970s, research on the aerodynamics of high-speed trains was conducted at the Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers (LIIZhT) (now the Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University). Measurements were conducted at the Department of Hydroaerodynamics of the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics of the M. I. Kalinin Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in the Large Wind Tunnel, which can generate flow speeds of up to 50 meters per second.

The exhibition features, among other things, the restored head section of a LIIZhT model with drainage holes to relieve surface pressure. In 1975, this model was used for measurements in the LPI Large Wind Tunnel (pressure was measured using LPI micromanometers with inclined tubes, one of which is also on display).

At the suggestion of the Center for the Study of Railway Transport (CMRT) staff, in 2025, a visualization of the flow around a LIIZhT model was conducted in the LPI-SPbPU Large Wind Tunnel using laser illumination of a system of air jets emitted from a set of tubes containing very fine liquid particles. Furthermore, velocity and pulsation measurements were taken near the LIIZhT model installed in the LPI-SPbPU Large Wind Tunnel using LPI-designed hot-wire anemometers and single-filament probes. Photographs and video recordings of these experiments, as well as the instruments used in the measurements, are also on display at the exhibition.

The exhibition opening was attended by Nikolai Ivanov, Director of the Institute of Physics and Mechanics; Evgeny Smirnov and Yuri Chumakov, professors at the Higher School of Applied Mathematics and Computational Physics at the Institute; and Andrei Yukhnev, head of the training laboratory. Evgeny Mikhailovich and Yuri Sergeyevich were already working at the department in 1975 and remember conducting aerodynamic tests of high-speed train models. In preparing for the exhibition, they planned a reconstruction of the experiment, in which A. Yukhnev played a key role.

I am grateful to the staff of the Central Museum of Railway Transport, and especially to curator Alexander Sergeyevich Nizkovsky, for their meticulous research in preparing the exhibition. We were literally immersed in the events of fifty years ago, when the first Soviet high-speed electric train, the ER200, was being developed, and the Polytechnic Institute, in collaboration with the Leningrad Institute of Railway Transport, participated in solving the scientific problems that arose at that time. It is gratifying that the unique experimental facility—the Large Wind Tunnel of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University—continues to operate. Importantly, in addition to aerodynamic testing, the tunnel regularly hosts laboratory work for students, allowing them to visualize the basic principles of hydroaerodynamics," said Nikolai Ivanov, Director of the Institute of Physics and Mechanics at SPbPU.

Please note: This information is raw content obtained directly from the source. It represents an accurate account of the source's assertions and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.