Category: Universities

Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –

Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –

This year marks the 66th anniversary of the Russian student brigade movement. And 10 years ago, by Decree of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, an official holiday was established for the participants of student brigade groups.

The spring of 1959 is considered to be the time when the detachments emerged, when a group of 339 students from the Lomonosov Moscow State University went to work on a construction site in the North Kazakhstan region, where virgin lands were being developed at the time. However, this date is also very conditional, since university students had been involved in agricultural work, large construction projects, and laying railways since 1920.

In the summer of 1962, the commanders of student detachments from leading Moscow universities wrote a collective letter to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev asking him to support their movement. He gave the go-ahead, and on November 15, 1963, the first All-Union Rally of the VSSO took place in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, where a single Charter for all student detachments was adopted.

Since then, the movement has acquired a truly grand scale. Student brigades participated in the development of virgin lands, the development of gas fields in Tyumen, the construction of the BAM, the Moscow metro, the VAZ and KAMAZ plants, the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station and other large facilities. Thanks to their activities, many settlements were founded, including the cities of Bratsk and Ust-Ilimsk. Over the years of the movement’s existence, tens of millions of students passed through it. The apogee was reached in 1982, when the one-time number of construction brigade fighters reached almost 550 thousand people.

During their student years, the current President of Russia Vladimir Putin, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, the Chairperson of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko and many other famous people had the opportunity to work in construction teams.

Of course, this movement did not pass by the State University of Management, which in the heyday of student brigades was called the Moscow Engineering and Economic Institute. The modern campus of the university was built with the most active participation of its students. Among them were the current professor of the Department of Information Systems Vladimir Godin, professor of the Department of Project Management Alexey Lyalin, deputy chairman of the primary trade union organization of GUU employees Nikolay Nesterov, professor of the Department of Management Theory of the Institute of Public Administration and Law Alexander Raichenko and others. We talked with the latter about the history of student brigades at GUU.

Alexander Vasilyevich, please tell us how the student work brigade movement began at our State University of Management and about your experience in them.

— It all started for us much earlier than I started participating in it. I first came to the construction team in August 1968, after I was enrolled as a first-year student. That year, we were sent to prepare the construction site of the university complex in the garden near the metro station, which is now called Vykhino. In addition, we already had construction teams in the Moscow region and teams that were engaged in harvesting agricultural products on state farms in the Moscow and Astrakhan regions. Then, starting in 1969, we began very large-scale construction of our complex.

Every year, 300 to 700 students worked here – this was our main construction site. Some worked not only in the summer months. In connection with this, their curriculum was redrawn, but they completed it in full. The next most important detachment was the agricultural harvesting detachment of approximately 600 people, who went to work in the Astrakhan region almost every year from 1969 to 1981.

Where else in the country, besides Astrakhan, did our detachments work? After all, the movement is known for its all-Union construction projects.

— Large construction teams worked in Siberia. Every year, two or three teams worked on the construction of the first line of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. We worked on the construction of the Khrebtovaya-Ust-Ilimsk branch, the settlement of Igirma. 120 of our students worked there for two years. And some time later, we worked for another two years in the settlement of Zvezdny, also on the BAM. We also had teams in the Gorno-Altai Region. In 1969, there were about eight teams there, from each faculty. And in the Uzhur District of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the settlement of Shchetinkino, they were building a large residential complex. There were also some rather exotic places to work. One of the teams worked on industrial and civil construction in the settlement of Mirny, in Yakutia, the diamond capital of Russia. This was an unexpected appointment for us, but our students showed themselves well there.

What practical benefits did these works provide to students?

— The experience that students gained in construction teams was very helpful. I know more than 30 current managers who gained their first experience in production activities in student teams. Today they hold respectable positions, from the head of the construction and installation department to the governor of the region.

And who from the current faculty of the State University of Management used to work in construction teams?

— I know more than 20 people working at the university today who had such experience. The thing is that this work was considered as industrial practice. Rector of MIEI Olimpiada Vasilyevna Kozlova defined this activity as the first immersive industrial practice. It was not industry-specific, but it provided real and useful experience. Almost 100% of students, with the exception of those who could not participate in the work due to physical condition, were involved in one or another detachment. And the most active did this throughout the entire period of study. That is, every year, starting in May, when our quartermasters left, and ending in October, when the final results were summed up and we settled accounts with our customers, they actively participated in this work.

We have an archive photo of MIE students in Czechoslovakia. Did our guys go anywhere else abroad?

— What you are talking about was an interesting practice, it was called “currency-free exchange”. Student teams from our university were sent to four countries: the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia (Charles University was a major partner of ours), Bulgaria (we had strong and long-term ties with it, our teams went there almost every year), and there were also ties with the Polish People’s Republic, although to a lesser extent. The same number of students from the universities with which we cooperated came from these countries. They worked for us, as a rule, on the construction of buildings for our university. Our students abroad worked at various sites, on construction sites of the national economy and the like.

Today, RSO is 400 thousand young people from 85 regions of Russia who cooperate with more than 1000 employers, including Russian Railways, Rosatom, Gazprom, EkoNiva, Artek and other large organizations. Thus, students not only gain practical skills in professional activities, but also help solve important economic problems, form the country’s personnel reserve.

“This is a unique school of life that shapes not only professional and personal qualities, but also the desire to live and develop in the native country. We are proud that the guys are becoming part of a big cause – strengthening the economy and social sphere of Russia. The contribution of the student brigades is an investment in the future of our country,” said the head of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh), associate professor of the Department of State and Municipal Administration of the State University of Management Grigory Gurov.

Let us recall that at the end of last year, the State University of Management signed a cooperation agreement with the RSO and this spring will begin active joint work in the area of pedagogical and educational activities, as well as the work of service departments.

We congratulate everyone involved in the movement on the holiday! We wish you success in work and study, as well as a lot of pleasant impressions from business trips and communication with new acquaintances.

Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 02/17/2025

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.