March in the history of BNTU is rich in events of various kinds: from the heroic pages of the Great Patriotic War to significant achievements in education and science.
March 9
On this day in 2019, an important step was taken in the development of BNTU's international cooperation. The Belarusian National Technical University and the Zhejiang Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower signed a memorandum of mutual cooperation in the field of joint training of Chinese students in the specialty "Automation of Technological Processes and Production" at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. The "4+0" format program provided for instruction in English directly in China with the participation of BNTU lecturers.
Notably, this English-language training format for Chinese students was the first of its kind both at BNTU and in the Republic of Belarus as a whole. China's Ministry of Education approved the program in October 2020, and the first enrollment took place in 2021. Graduates who complete the joint program receive two diplomas: from the Zhejiang Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower and from BNTU.
March 11
This day preserves the memory of one of the graduates of the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute who gave his life for his Homeland. Semyon Mozhar, a 1941 graduate of BPI, served during the Great Patriotic War as Deputy Commander for Counterintelligence of the 125th Partisan Brigade. He participated in neutralizing enemy agents, blowing up fascist military trains, and fighting against punitive forces. Semyon Vasilyevich was killed in battle for the village of Sosnovets in the Oktyabrsky district on March 11, 1944.
His fate is one example of how the institute's representatives honorably fulfilled their military duty. On the eve of the war, the institute employed 180 faculty members, including 19 professors and 71 associate professors, with 32 departments and 18 laboratories in operation; approximately 2,000 engineers had been trained in the pre-war years. Many of them stepped forward to defend the Homeland.
March 12
This day in Polytechnic's history is marked by two events at once. In 1935, the institute hosted a meeting of students with Belarusian writers. The works discussed were "Dryahva" by Yakub Kolas and "Above the Arosa River" by Yanka Kupala. The meeting was lively and engaging: many students wished to speak, and they not only praised the works highly but also offered critical remarks. Yakub Kolas was pleased with the conversation and noted that he trusted the observations of an ordinary reader more than those of a professional critic.
Fourteen years after this event, on March 12, 1949, the USSR Ministry of Higher and Secondary Special Education decided to establish a Peat Faculty at the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute, based on the peat division of the Peat Reclamation Faculty. The vast peat reserves in Belarus and the growth of its extraction demanded the training of specialized engineers. As a result, the Peat Reclamation Faculty was divided into the Peat Faculty and the Hydraulic Engineering Faculty. The Peat Faculty was tasked with training engineers capable of addressing industry challenges in the specialties of "Development of Peat Deposits" and "Peat Machinery."
March 15
March 15 also proved to be an eventful date in BNTU's history. In 1957, the USSR government issued a resolution on the establishment of research laboratories at higher education institutions, known in short as "problem laboratories." In fulfillment of this decision, by order of the USSR Minister of Higher Education, problem laboratories in automobiles, silicates, and glass were opened at the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute. Their creation gave a new impetus to the development of applied science at the Polytechnic.
Then, on March 15, 2024, as part of the XXXI Minsk International Book Fair, a presentation was held for the book "Think, Europe!" by Vladimir Bobkov — Professor at the Department of Social Management of the Faculty of Management Technologies and Humanitarization at BNTU, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, and Honored Scientist of the Republic of Belarus. The book, dedicated to trends in European and global political processes, was published in the year of the author's 85th birthday. Interest in the publication was shown by Leonid Anfimov, First Deputy Secretary General of the CIS, as well as ambassadors of Iran, Turkey, and Kazakhstan.
The events described here represent only a part of BNTU's rich history. Behind each date stand people, discoveries, and decisions that have shaped the university into what we know it as today.
