Russia Unveils a $2-Billion Campus on the Edge of China
Russia Unveils a $2-Billion Campus on the Edge of China
Russky Island, the home of Russia’s newest university, is not a hospitable place. The winds from the Pacific Ocean are incessant, and temperatures can plummet to minus 49 degrees. Winters are especially bitter, lasting six or seven months.
Yet Moscow has invested billions of dollars here in hopes of attracting some of the world’s brightest young people and reviving a steadily shrinking local economy in this geopolitically sensitive region on the edge of China.
The government has spent $20-billion constructing a convention center, banks, shops, and housing, among other things, along with three spectacular bridges across Vladivostok’s several bays.
One of them, the world’s longest cable bridge, leads to the newly built $2-billion campus of Far Eastern Federal University. The campus formally opens next year, although some students will begin to move to the island’s dormitories next month. For now, they are taking classes at the university’s old campus, in Vladivostok, with some classes probably starting on the island this winter.
The university, which is the result of a merger of several smaller nearby universities, has an ambitious agenda: the Kremlin expects it will join the list of both Russia’s and the world’s best universities within a decade.
To that end, Far Eastern Federal will specialize in areas like Asian languages, marine biology, nanotechnology, and energy-conserving technologies. It will offer courses in both Russian and English, with many of its Russian professors undergoing required language training.
It hopes to attract top international professors and at least 30,000 students, 11,000 of whom would live on the island. It aims to lure students with local amenities, such as new swimming pools, as well as the promise of financial aid and an international education.
But the university has its share of skeptics. They point out, for one, that Far Eastern Federal has managed to recruit only 2,500 students this year, most of them from Russia, studying in buildings is scattered around Vladivostok.