Published on: 2026-10-06
Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
How did music become part of the Polytech students’ schedule? At the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, the answer to this question has been known for two decades. Here, music and creativity have become part of higher education — not as a one-time cultural event, but as a full-fledged component of the educational process.
“Creative Semesters at the Polytechnic” is a unique educational practice for higher education, whose main idea is to expand the usual boundaries of engineering education, introduce students to world musical culture, and develop their creative thinking. First-year students — future builders, nuclear physicists, metallurgists, programmers, bioengineers — find themselves not in a usual classroom but in a concert hall.
The first discovery for them was the thereminvox — an electronic musical instrument created last century within the walls of the Polytechnic. Olesya Rostovskaya, the leading thereminvox performer in Russia, not only introduced students to the biography of the inventor Lev Termen and the capabilities of the instrument, but also gave everyone interested the opportunity to try extracting “sounds from space” themselves.
For the fifth year in a row, a special event has become the performance of the literary and musical composition “Russia, don’t be afraid, we are with you!”. Through addressing the history of the Siege of Leningrad, its creators — actors of the theater, singers, and musicians — speak with students about the tragic events in Donbas.
“In five years of working at SPbPU, every word we have spoken has not only remained relevant but has become stronger! — noted the program’s author, actress of the G.A. Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater, Alexandra Kulikova. — Some people join in with great enthusiasm, others with less, but the guys hear us, and that’s very important! I see and feel how they perceive the poems, immerse themselves in another reality, and in this space, their growth happens.
“It was unexpected to hear about the events in Donetsk, which became the starting point of what is happening today, — shared first-year IMM&T student Arseniy Makovkin. — In this production — the truth: living testimonies and very poignant music! Thank you for letting us experience what we have just experienced.
This week marked the beginning of getting acquainted with classical music. Students listen to Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, but most importantly, they gradually learn to perceive music: to understand the composer’s language and to formulate their own attitude toward what they hear. For many years, the task of educating through music at Polytech has been excellently fulfilled by Associate Professor of the Humanities Institute, Head of the Directorate of Cultural Programs and Youth Creativity Boris Kondin, and Professor of the Saint Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory Igor Rogalev.
The Head of the Directorate for Cultural Programs and Youth Creativity, Boris Kondin, noted: “Engineering education should not be limited to professional competencies. A person who will create technologies, make decisions, and determine the development of society in the future must possess a cultural and intellectual horizon. The great Russian engineer Vladimir Shukhov said: ‘I do not conceive of an engineer outside of culture.’ That is precisely why ‘Creative Semesters’ have become a sustainable part of the educational environment at Politekh. For 21 years now, we have been opening up the world of global musical culture to students. This educational experiment at SPbPU has become a tradition and has broadened the understanding of engineering education.”
Photo: Dmitry Merzlyakov
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