UTMN International Students Explore Siberian Nature
Trainees attended lectures on agriculture and ecology and took part in an expedition.
An international summer school Way to the North ended at University of Tyumen. This year, the school brought together participants from China, Ghana, Egypt and Kazakhstan. They spent the first three days in Tyumen preparing for field study, working at the UTMN Institute of Biology and seeing places of interest in the city. The expedition began with a trip to Tobolsk. The students were accommodated at a dormitory of the UTMN branch. They saw top sites including the Abalak village and the local Monastery of Virgin of the Sign. The next stop was Kogalym where they stayed for a few days. The summer school participants toured the town, saw a hot-house, the oceanarium at the Galaktika sport and cultural complex and the Museum and Exhibition Centre, learnt about indigenous livelihood and met with specialists of the Russian oil company Lukoil-West Siberia. Environmental protection department personnel told them about ecological monitoring, microorganism study and bioremediation of technogenic wasteland. The international students visited the Kogalym Polytechnical College, its laboratories and workshops and talked to pupils.
Nadym was the next point on the itinerary. The young researchers explored dunes in the middle reaches of the river Nadym and sand quarries, travelled to unique lakes outside the city, took part in an excavation and visited the Arctic Research Centre and the Museum of History and Archaelogy. On the way back, the group stopped over in Surgut.
In every town, the students attended lectures on the summer school topics such as Western Siberia agriculture, natural resources use and protection, landscapes and climate change in Western Siberia, soil formation peculiarities in permafrost areas, biodiversity and oil and gas sector impact on ecology.
University of Tyumen is a modern Russian university providing education in 25 fields, from biology to archaeology. Both Russian and English-taught programmes are available. Read more about the university here.
