How can you fit a labor feat, a cultural outing, a sports race, and the birth of a dance company into one week? It turns out, if it's BNTU week, it's easy. Let's take it one step at a time.
April 28
In 1979, the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute team was awarded the Commemorative Banner of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR. This prestigious award recognized the active participation of BPI student brigades in construction, as well as their extensive agitation, propaganda, and cultural work on Kazakhstan's collective and state farms. Student construction brigades were more than just a place for practical training; they became a school of life, where the character of future engineers was shaped.
More than forty years later, on April 28, 2022, a new chapter in the collaboration between art and technical education opened within the walls of the National Art Museum. BNTU Rector Sergei Kharitonchik and Museum Director Vladimir Prokoptsov signed an agreement on long-term mutually beneficial cooperation. The agreement stipulated that student classes would be held at the museum, and BNTU, in turn, pledged to assist with the restoration and repair of equipment necessary for the restoration of the exhibits. "By using the facilities of the National Art Museum to teach our students, any technical work will become a work of art," the BNTU rector remarked at the ceremony.
In 2023, BNTU was ranked among the top 10 colleges and universities in the CIS by Higher Education Review magazine. The Bangalore-based publication's expert committee evaluated the leading technical universities of Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan and recognized BNTU as the leader, noting the university's rich, century-long history and its unique educational, scientific, and innovative potential.
May 1
On May 1, 2023, Romuald Parmon, former director of the folk ensemble of the Belarusian National Technical University's Artistic Creativity Department and conductor of the folk orchestra of folk instruments, was awarded the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus Prize in Literature, Art, Journalism, and Amateur Creativity. The award was given for outstanding creative achievements and the orchestra's active concert and performance activities.
Romuald Parmon joined the Polytechnic University in 1956, enrolling in the automobile and tractor department and already proficient in playing the domra and balalaika. In 1964, he was appointed conductor of the orchestra, and for decades since then, he has combined teaching in the department with leading the orchestra. Shortly before receiving the award, on April 19, 2023, Romuald Parmon handed over his conductorship, bringing his artistic career to a successful close. “I think it’s important to leave the stage at the right time,” he said, adding that he chose the most opportune moment to do so.
May 2
On May 2, 2003, the First International Student Athletics Race began under an intergovernmental agreement between the Republic of Belarus and the Republic of Udmurtia. The event was initiated by the rectors of BNTU and Izhevsk State Technical University. The race was timed to coincide with the 58th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War and aimed to preserve the memory of heroic events not only in books and films, but also through athletic achievements.
ISTU athletes started from the Eternal Flame Memorial in Izhevsk and traveled through Novocheboksarsk, Cheboksary, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir, Moscow, and Smolensk. BNTU athletes joined them at the Belarusian border, and the combined team arrived in Minsk on the eve of May 9. A rally was held at BNTU's main building, after which the joint run continued to the Victory Monument on Victory Square. "Such runs are necessary to keep the flame of people's memory of the courage, humanism, and spiritual greatness of the Soviet soldier alive," said BNTU Rector Boris Khrustalev at the time. The first run became the launchpad for close cooperation between the universities, a tradition that continues to this day.
May 3
In 1988, the BNTU established an Educational and Methodological Department—a structure designed to ensure the quality and consistency of the educational process. The creation of the EMD was a response to the growing complexity of academic work at a large technical university and laid the foundation for the systematic development of the Polytechnic's methodological framework.
In 2005, another creative association was born at BNTU—the pop dance choreographic group "Demo-Art," founded by Sergei Zherko, a student in the Faculty of Economics. Its emergence became part of the university's great cultural history: by that time, the BNTU Department of Culture, established in 2003 on the foundations of a student club, already united dozens of groups—from a folk orchestra of folk instruments, founded in 1946, to theaters, ensembles, and a choir. It was in this rich creative environment that "Demo-Art" emerged, continuing a tradition that has lived on at BNTU for eight decades.
Although it happened in different years, it all truly did fit into one week. And what happened next, we'll find out in the next episode.
