Student Brigades

As the brigade commander, I was responsible for our professional skills training and social life. The university supported my initiative and provided with the necessary funding. Thus, I was able to participate in Student Brigade Leader Schools in Yekaterinburg and Perm while all my 14 team members could complete a Professional Plasterers and Painters Program at a technology college in Moscow. We organized different events to learn about each other and build a strong team. I got us a job within the All-Russian Student Construction Project “Akademicheskiy” in Yekaterinburg for Summer 2013. It was the same place where I took my KSTA team before.

The Summer was hot in terms of both weather and everything happening in our brigade. Engineering physicists turned out to be true romantics, adventurers, and people full of joy and creativity. We built, played, danced, cared for each other, hiked, sang songs around campfire, and spent time with many other teams. Some students found love and eventually formed families. Other students became close friends. On the construction site, we performed the best, won the All-Russian competition, and returned to Moscow as heroes:). It was a great time.

In Fall 2013, I started a Student Brigades Staff as a commander to facilitate the development of student brigades at MEPhI branches. By Fall 2014, we got 10 student brigades of over 300 students. We organized our own Brigade Leader School, MEPhI Student Movement Museum, and different meetings and creativity events for the movement members. I started our magazine by writing its first issue and, as a producer and a director, contributed to the documentary film about the participants of MEPhI brigades that existed before the 90s to preserve history. 

To secure paid summer work, I met with the representatives from the State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM to discuss the opportunity for MEPhI engineering physics students to participate in the construction of nuclear power plants in Belarus, Novovoronezh, and Rostov. I also met with the President V. Putin to discuss the possibility for Russian Student Brigades to take part in the reconstruction of homes destroyed in flooding in the Russian Far East. Both meetings led to partnership contracts between the students and corresponding organizations.

In the winter of 2013 and 2014, I volunteered in cold Altai Krai (-30 °C) as a member of the “Gulf Stream” student team. We helped veterans and elderly people living alone with household chores. We also organized concerts and games for children in the villages.

Reflection: The Russian Student Brigades movement was one of the brightest aspects of my student life. It gave me friends and unforgettable memories, and it did the same for many others. It also taught me how to build and lead a team, find and get a job for us, take care of our professional skills training and social life, carry responsibility for everything and everyone in summer trips including the management of the work on construction sites. 

However, since the organization of the Student Brigades Staff, I spent almost all my time and energy on the movement and could not pursue my other research, educational, and personal dreams. Therefore, in late Spring 2014, I left the movement and never came back. The brigades and the Staff formed at MEPhI at my time are still functioning and many other brigades have appeared since then.