22.11.2007 // Information Department of Leningrad NPP

Ten professors of Moscow Engineering Physics Institute visited Leningrad NPP on Nov 21 2007

A group of ten professors of Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPI) visited Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant on Nov 21 2007. Most of them were older than the university itself – on Nov 23 MEPI is marking its 65th anniversary. The point is that the Government is planning to establish a federal nuclear university on the basis of MEPI.

The guests visited the 1st unit of the plant. The shift manager Vladimir Bragin and his subordinates – senior operators of reactor, turbine and unit control systems – told them about the technical state of Leningrad NPP and the social-economic conditions of its personnel.

One of the guests asked if there were MEPI graduates among the employees of the plant. Bragin and one of the engineers turned out to be ones. They said that in the past there were many MEPI graduates at the plant but since the 1970s the inflow of MEPI students to the plant has substantially declined.

“When I was entering MEPI, there were 8–10 people per vacancy, now, there are just 2 people,” assistant professor of MEPI Vladimir Cheburkov said. “The institute paid me as much as my mother earned. Even bad students got scholarships because our industry needed specialists.”

“Today, we are satisfied with the average marks our entrants receive but not with the general knowledge of school-leavers. We have two colleges for training entrants but, unfortunately, some of them choose different professions when entering our university: either, nuclear power engineering is not as attractive today as it was in our times or, perhaps, it is a matter of fashion: today, there are more prestigious professions, for example, information technologies. In the colleges we give our students enough knowledge for becoming computer programmers.”

“Sometimes, we are forced to send down some students. When entering the university they score high points, but, later, they turn out to be unfit for the job they are going to do. We prefer not graduating such specialists. Some students find jobs and quit the university. Most of the graduates refuse to teach at our university because we pay little money.”

“But we carry out so interesting projects and design so many innovative systems and programs! And they will certainly give us profit. Besides, there are still people who love and are destined for science,” the student of Cheburkov, the assistant of the department of systems and devices Timur Khalfin said.

“Filling the shortage of personnel is just piece of cake. First, we should lend money to those who wish to enter our university, when they get employed they will pay it back. Second, we should build hostels for students. Third, we should solve the problem of housing: one solution is mortgage crediting.”

“What can we offer to a young specialist – a room in a hostel? He can perfectly live like that in Moscow or St.Petersburg and trade in something without any responsibility for anything. In Moscow they pay 20,000–25,000 to managers, if we start paying as much our specialists will not quit their jobs,” Khalfin said.