At the beginning of 1952 we learned that in accordance with the decree of the government the Radio Engineering University was organized. This news was taken in with great interest, especially among the youth. The Institute gave the opportunity to get higher education in new fields of engineering with the perspective of an interesting and creative job. At this time the construction of electronic devices and accounting machines factories were coming to the end. On the basis of woodworking factory radioengineering was organized. The construction of radio and oil-refining factories was planned.
Soon the intake of first year students on three directions: radioengineering, electric instrument, electro vacuum engineering was announced. On August 1, by the beginning of the exams there was a competition for applications - about three people per place. Among the university applicants were participants of the Great Patriotic War, generally citizens of Ryazan and the region. The entrance examination requirements were high. The math exam was the most difficult.
On September 1, the first academic year in the new Ryazan Radio Engineering University began. 300 hundred students got down to classes. The unfinished building of the construction technical school on the Yamskaya Street (now Tsyolkovskogo Street) and two-floors buiding on vocational school on Proletarskaya Street (now Kudryavzeva Street) were adapted for educational buildings. In the gymnasium of this vocational school a student hostel was placed. In the teaching staff, small at first, there were generally associate professors and young assistants, coming from Leningrad and Moscow. Many of them worked with great passion, creativeness. They essentially organized the studying process from scratch, created laboratories including new directions of radio engineering and technology. For it there were facilities to get a lot of new equipment both domestic and imported. The students who had working experience took part in the preparation of laboratories.
We think of our first teachers with cordiality and appreciation. Among them were the rector K. A. Sapozhkov, vice rector P. N. Goryunov, deans B. I. Bragin, Y. M. Korshunov, S. A. Suslov, teachers A. A. Drugov, V. A. Volgov, B. I. Kushev, V. A. Chikin, N. G. Svalov, I. K. Anisimov, V. K. Telezkin.
Students took the learning seriously. They didn’t miss classes without reasonable excuse. Any of them got a hunger for knowledge and desire to stand the pace. Unselfish and welcoming mutual help was a standard of relationship. Some difficulties in the studying process emerged because of the fact that we didn’t have food senior courses, their experience, traditions, examples of theses, projects and home works. We had to reach much on our own. Despite this fact, we studied not bad, and some our works in the future found itself useful to younger colleagues.
From the first days we began to create public organizations, that basically consisted of students. Practically everything was for the first time: student scientific and engineering conference, radio center equipment, film and photo clubs, trips to collective farms.
There were already projects of new buildings: main academic building and hostels. We saw them in drawings, and in October, 1952 "the first stone" of the main academic building was laid. Students took the most direct part in the construction. During the summer vacations everyone was working at the building area for a month. But for various reasons the construction was tightened and so it was impossible for us to study in the main academic building. It was still not finished. Half a century passed, and memories of student life are still alive in memory. I remember, how we went to military training to Zagorsk, and the first head of the military department Vorobyev by all means decided us to send to caves, as in military years though it was possible to reach the place by a usual civil train. I remember, with what enthusiasm the stadium was built, we dug trenches under the groundwork and a water supply system of a new building of the institute. All of us were surprised to diligence and organizing abilities of our classmate Nina Semenova and tried to work with feelings.
All of us had a great respect to our rector Konstantin Andreevich Sapozhkov. Graduated from the institute, we presented him a gold watch for memory. Unfortunately, in the regional committee he was given an admonition for it. Konstantin Andreevich was persistently striving for the fastest finishing of the institute building construction, criticized quite often regional management that didn't render active support. And, of course, it caused negative reaction of the administration. Soon he was transferred to Penza. When I visited this town, I certainly met with Konstantin Andreevich, and he told warmly about our university staff, he knew almost everyone by sight and greeted everyone with respect. For him our university was like a child, of which he was very proud.
And I also want to mark, that communicating with our first teachers gave us a lesson for life. They belonged to the true intelligentsia, who transferred the best traditions of the Leningrad universities to us in Ryazan. By the way, still the enumeration of groups in RSREU of the Leningrad system remained. And they imparted to us patriotism feelings and pride of our university. On distribution, and I as the A level student was distributed by the first, I was offered prestigious work on one of the enterprises, in addition to this, shortly the apartment on the Pervomaiskiy avenue in elite houses at that time. But A.A.Drugov began to persuade me to stay on the department as the assistant. And I stayed. A teacher’s job was considered to be honorable at that time. Besides I just settled to a marry life, and a room in an the institute hostel for us seemed paradise.
After the successful defend of the graduation works in 1957 young engineers on distribution came to the radio engineering enterprises of Ryazan, went to Moscow, Yaroslavl, Voronezh, Izhevsk, Berdsk, Kyshtym, Aleksandrov. During the time of work our first graduates became the highly qualified experts, many were awarded by the state. Some of them became scientists, university teachers. Among them professor A.I.Bobikov, L.I.Zakharyashchev, Yu.V.Kiselev, L.P. Korichnev who work at our university.
by A.F.Tsvetkov