Foreign students at the Belgorod State Technological University

Many foreign students from many countries study at the Belgorod State Technological University. They can choose from all degree courses taught at the University. The students may become civil engineers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, computer engineers, architects, economists, accountants and others.

The course of study at the University lasts 6 years. The first year is mainly spent at the preparatory faculty where foreigners learn Russian and some other subjects necessary for their future profession.

The entrance requirements for the University are complete secondary education equivalent to a Russian eleven-year secondary education and maximum age of 35.

Foreign students enjoy all the privileges of the Russian system of education – highly qualified teaching, the use of reading rooms, libraries and sports and cultural facilities, etc. at the University.

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Moscow University

Universities have long been sources of scientific knowledge and culture. Moscow University is the largest and one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Russia. M. Lomonosov, the great Russian scientist, founded it in 1755.

The university trains students with a high degree of culture and knowledge. It has a lot of fine traditions and possesses excellent training facilities. Those studying at the University are students and research workers at the same time.

Sixteen faculties, which embrace 276 departments, train people in 237 specialties.

Practically, all the nationalities of the Russian Federation are represented. Some 75 per cent of the students receive scholarships.

The University’s international ties are numerous and varied. Thousand of foreign students and postgraduates study there. Many university professors and lecturers go abroad to lecture and research. In recent years, they have delivered lectures in many countries including the USA, the UK, France, Canada and other countries.

Moscow University has long-term agreements on cooperation with universities in a number of countries.

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Resources of Russia

Russia is among the world’s richest countries in mineral resources. It is the biggest producer of coal, petroleum, and natural gas, as well as iron, ore, copper, zinc, lead, nicked, aluminum, and tin. Russia’s chemical industry is well developed, and the country’s enormous forests are capable of supplying all its wood and paper products. Energy is generated mostly by thermal plants using the country’s vast fossil-fuel reserves. About three-fifths of Russian farmland is used to grow crops; the remainder is given to pasture and meadow. The main product has always been grain-chiefly wheat, rye, barley, and oats – along with such industrial crops as sunflower seeds, sugar, beets, and flax.

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St. Petersburg

St Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia and one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great as the “Window to the West”. Thousands of workmen were brought from all parts of Russia to build a new city on the swampy land at the mouth of the Neva River. Peter the Great was in a hurry. The work was fast and hard, and workmen dropped dead by the hundreds. However, the work went on. St Petersburg, a city of great beauty, with palaces, cathedrals, churches, and government buildings became the capital.

Under later rules, the new capital of the Russia Empire grew rapidly in wealth and beauty. Architects were brought from Western Europe to lay out the city in harmonious squares. Buildings were constructed of gray and rose-coloured granite. The Hermitage Palace and the Winter Palace, the homes of the tsars, were equal to any in Europe.

When the First World War began in 1914, the German-sounding name, St Petersburg, was changed to Petrograd. After the Great October Revolution, the city was renamed after Lenin.

During the Great Patriotic War, the city suffered a great deal. The German armies laid siege to it in 1941, and for the next year and a half it was cut off from the rest of the country. No food could be brought in, and people died of starvation. Daily shelling and air raids destroyed parts of the city, thousands of people were killed. Rebuilding took years.

Now St Petersburg is an important industrial, cultural and educational center. The population of the city is over 5 million.

St Petersburg is indeed a wonderful city. At every turn there is something to catch your eye. The Winter Palace, the Hermitage, the Russian Museum, St Isaac’s Cathedral, the Peter-and-Paul Fortress, the Admiralty building attract thousands of tourists from every corner of the world.

St Petersburg’s many museums house some of the world’s famous art collection. The Hermitage, for example, contains the richest collection of pictures in the world. The city is called Northern Venice because there are 65 rivers and canals there with artistically decorated bridges. It’s also famous for its beautiful white nights.

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The Tretyakov Gallery

In a quiet little street in Moscow there is a building which is like many other old Russian houses. It was built at the end of the 19th century and was decorated by the well known painter, Victor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov. It is the Tretyakov Gallery.

More than a hundred years ago in 1856 a young business man Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov, the owner of the biggest linen factory in Russia, began collecting pictures by Russian painters.

Soon he decided to organize a museum of national art which must be open to all. He wanted to have in his collection everything, which showed best the development of Russian national art. He bought all the new and interesting paintings from the art galleries. The basis of his collection was founded on the works by Perov, Kramskoi, Shishkin, Surikov, Vasnetsov, Repin and many other artists of that time. Later he bought paintings by Levitan, Serov and Korovin.

In 1892 Tretyakov presented his collection to the City of Moscow. The name of its founder was given to the Gallery. Later the Tretyakov Gallery got a number of other collections devoted to ancient and Russian art of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

The collection is being constantly expanded by the addition of the best works of Russian painters.

There are more than forty thousand works of art, paintings, sculptures and many other examples of decorative art in the Tretyakov Gallery now.

The Tretyakov Gallery collection reflects the history of old Russia, the life, work and ideals of its people, their struggle for freedom and happiness.

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The Kremlin

The Kremlin is the heart of Moscow. It is surrounded by a high wall of 2.5 kilometers long, built by the Russian builders by order of Ivan III (1462 – 1505), and supervised by the Italian architects. The twenty towers on the Kremlin wall, which give it a unique aspect, were built for decorations and have no military significance. They were constructed in the seventeenth century when Moscow had ceased to be a fortress. Among the ancient buildings in the Kremlin are the churches and tall bell tower built in 1600 by Russian architects under Boris Godunov and known as the Bell Tower of Ivan the Great. The largest cathedral, the Uspenski (Assumption), was built in 1475 – 1479 by Aristotle Fiorovante. There are some very fine old frescoes, some of which were restored in the 20th century. It was there that the Russian tsars and emperors were crowned.

The Archangel Cathedral was built in 1505 by the Italian architect, Aleviso Novy. The tombs of the Moscow princes and tsars are here among them the graves of Ivan the Terrible, of his son Ivan, and of his second, Tsar Fyodor. The Blagoveshchensky (Annunciation) Cathedral was built in 1484 by architects from Pskov. It is noted for the unusual oil paintings done in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by Andrei Rublev and his pupils, the greatest artists of the time.

Facing the same square is the very beautiful building known as Granovitaya Palata (Palace) which was built in the end of the 15th century by Marco Ruffo and Pietro Solari. In this palace the Moscow tsars held magnificent receptions in honour of foreign ambassadors. The Granovitaya Palace is connected with the enormous Grand Kremlin Palace.

Among other historical monuments in the Kremlin are the Tsar Cannon (sixteenth century) and the Tsar Bell (eighteenth century), both of enormous size and made by Russian masters. In a large wing of the Palace are the Armoury and a museum of applied art where imperial collections of utensils, furniture, weapon and garments of eastern and western workmanship are on display.

In the north-eastern section of the Kremlin is a beautiful building of classic design built famous Russian architect of the eighteenth century, by the most

M. Kazakov. In the square opposite this building is the former Arsenal, along the façade of which are numerous cannons captured by the Russian Army from Napoleon in 1812 – 1814.

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