History

210 years of higher forest education in russia

Rus­sia is one of the rich­est for­est coun­tries in the world and forests are the key com­po­nent of the region­al ecosys­tems. For­est is one of the most need­ed renew­able resources deter­min­ing eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment of the whole country.
Rus­sia tsar Peter the Great was an out­stand­ing reformer and author of the first for­est law in Rus­sia. He was ful­ly aware of the lack of expe­ri­enced spe­cial­ists in the “for­est art” and had to invite experts from oth­er countries.
In 1803, by a decree of Alexan­der I, the For­est Insti­tute, the first for­est high­er school in Rus­sia, was estab­lished in Saint Peters­burg. Well-known Russ­ian sci­en­tists worked there and made a great con­tri­bu­tion into devel­op­ment of not only domes­tic, but also the world sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. There were foresters G.F. Moro­zov (1867–1920), M.M. Orlov (1867–1932), A.F. Rudzskiy (1838–1901), a chemist A.N. Engel­gard (1832–1893), a zool­o­gist N.A. Kholod­kovskiy (1858–1921), a botanist and phe­nol­o­gist D.N. Kay­gorodov (1846–1924) and many others.
In 1929, because of indus­tri­al­iza­tion of for­est sci­ence in the USSR, the For­est Insti­tute was reor­ga­nized into For­est Tech­ni­cal Acad­e­my. It became a large poly­tech­nic high­er school train­ing spe­cial­ists for all branch­es of the for­est indus­try: sil­vi­cul­ture, for­est pro­tec­tion, log­ging, trans­porta­tion of wood, mechan­i­cal and chem­i­cal pro­cess­ing of wood, and others.
World famous sci­en­tists I.P. Borodin (1847–1930), L.A. Ivanov (1877–1962), M.N. Rim­skiy-Kor­sakov (1873–1951), M.E. Tkachenko (1878–1950), V.N. Sukachev (1880–1967), N.N. Nepenin (1883–1967), N.I. Nikitin (1890–1975), S.I. Vanin (1891–1951), A.N. Pesot­skiy (1896–1987), V.I. Sharkov (1907–1974), S.F. Orlov (1910–1979), A.E. Grube (1907–1974), A.M. Gold­berg (1910–1980) mul­ti­plied sci­en­tif­ic author­i­ty of the For­est Tech­ni­cal Acad­e­my, devel­oped nation­al sys­tem of for­est edu­ca­tion and trained tal­ent­ed successors.
At present, the Saint Peters­burg State For­est Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty (FTU), which in 2013 cel­e­brates its 210th anniver­sary, is real­iz­ing edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams of sec­ondary, high­er, post-grad­u­ate and con­tin­ued pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion, advanced cours­es for qual­i­fied spe­cial­ists in indus­tri­al, sci­en­tif­ic and ped­a­gog­i­cal activ­i­ties in the spheres of forestry, wood­work­ing, pulp and paper, hydrolyt­ic indus­try, car­ry­ing out fun­da­men­tal and applied research.
The FTU was the first uni­ver­si­ty among for­est tech­ni­cal ones in Rus­sia to real­ize mul­ti-lev­el sys­tem of high­er pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion. Today, more than 6000 stu­dents are study­ing here rep­re­sent­ing cit­i­zens of 42 coun­tries of the world.
The Uni­ver­si­ty has a fun­da­men­tal edu­ca­tion­al and research basis. Sci­en­tif­ic and teach­ing staff of the FTU devel­ops both tra­di­tion­al and new sci­en­tif­ic and edu­ca­tion­al direc­tions high­ly appre­ci­at­ed by pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Study process is pro­vid­ed by qual­i­fied teach­ing staff, 67% of which have PhD degrees.
The FTU has always been a lead­ing sci­en­tif­ic and method­i­cal cen­tre of for­est-relat­ed high­er edu­ca­tion in Rus­sia. It com­pris­es Cen­tre of Exper­tise, Inter­na­tion­al Cen­tre of Forestry and For­est Indus­try (ICFFI), Depart­ment of For­est and For­est Pro­duc­tion Tech­nol­o­gy of the World Tech­no­log­i­cal University.