Supplemantary texts

THE UNIVERSITY I STUDY AT

The Belarusian National Technical University (BNTU) founded more than 85 years ago (in 1920) is one of the largest educational and scientific centres of the Republic of Belarus. It started as a vocational school; in some years it was turned into an agricultural institute; in 1930s, when several Belarusian higher institutions were combined into one, it became the Belarusian Polytechnical Institute. In 1990s the institute was renamed into the Belarusian State Polytechnical Academy (BSPA) and now it is called the BNTU.

At first, there were only 6 departments there. Now the students are trained at 15 departments for the main branches of the national economy, including mechanical engineering, instrument making, electrical engineering, power and civil engineering, automobile and tractor maintenance, economics and management, nature resources and ecology, mechanical technologies, business and administration, information technologies and robotics, engineers and teachers’ training, architecture, transport communications, and military engineering.

The University occupies 18 buildings. Modern technical aids, the newest technological equipment and computers are widely used in the process of instruction. The well-stocked library gives an opportunity to widen students' outlook. Over 27,000 students (including about 500 international students from more than 20 countries) are studying here. More than 30 nationalities are represented among our student body. 1800 instructors are working at 103 chairs of the BNTU. The Academicians, Professors, State Prize Laureates, Meritorious Science Workers are among them. The University is headed by the rector and 8 prorectors who are responsible for the whole work of the BNTU.

The most modern industrial enterprises and construction sites provide facilities for the students to acquire practical experience. The BNTU graduates work at various plants, factories, universities and laboratories. Approximately 70 % work in industry. A lot of them continue their study as post-graduates (about 100 students annually).

Research work at the BNTU is being done on the most urgent scientific problems. The students are involved in the scientific and research projects. Fundamental researches and applied works carried out at the BNTU have become the basis for holding various international conferences, seminars and exhibitions with the participation of UNESCO, UNO and CE. 64 foreign higher educational institutes collaborating with the BNTU, the university co-operates actively with CEPES and the IAESTE.

POWER ENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION

The academic programs differ greatly in various universities.

Our University has 15 departments, and it's difficult to calculate all the fields the BNTU students major in.

As you may have noticed every department has its own code. For example, my department of Power Engineering Construction is usually called "the 110th" department.

What is meant by this title?

Those who major in Water Resources Engineering will be involved in hydro-power plant construction.

Water-resources engineering is a science of designing, constructing and utilizing hydraulic structures. These structures are dams, hydropower stations, structures related to the river and sea transport, reclamation and irrigation systems.

The students who have chosen Water Supply and Waste Water Treatment as their major will be involved in industrial and civil engineering and in ecological projects. Water is of great importance in natural processes and in human society. It is used for a variety of purposes. Pollution of natural waters is one of the main ecological problems.

Third-year students are involved in the Baltic University program. It's a joint Swedish-Belarusian project where other countries of the Baltic Sea basin can take part as well.

Those who are interested in Economics choose Management in Industry. The competition among the applicants for this speciality is fierce.

Another speciality is called Heating, Air Conditioning, Gas Supply and Air Protection.

The graduates who major in these fields make our indoor environment comfortable. They are involved in industrial and civil engineering. They will work with heating, cooling and air cleaning equipment.

Now applicants have got an opportunity to enter our faculty and become experts in Low Temperature Machinery. Refrigerating Systems will be their major.

And the most romantic-sounding speciality was created at our department in 2004. It is called Shipbuilding and River transport. Having appeared some years ago, this speciality now represents vast interest for the applicants, because future perspectives in this field are really promising.

CADETS’ SAIL TRAINING

Sailing ships, especially the larger ones, though seemed to be old-fashioned, may well be floating extensions to maritime colleges. Their cadets may be spending one or two terms of an overall curriculum on them, which will fit them for a professional career at sea, either in the Navy or Merchant Fleet.

Do you find it difficult to imagine how such an out of date sort of a ship can train future officers and sailors for a navy?

We thought you might, because that is the thing, which is so difficult to explain. However if you compare their time on board with a mountaineering or climbing course, canoe training, sub-aqua diving or any other adventurous activity and if you realize how much people get out of such courses, then it begins to make a bit more sense.

When the newcomers find themselves on board a training programme is started to enable the ship to leave her berth and get under way; this occupies the worried minds and gives plenty of opportunity to learn the unusual skills that will be needed.

Once the young crew, with one of them at the wheel and others acting as lookouts, allows the ship to slip slowly out of the harbour, out into the estuary where, in slow time, they learn the basic manoeuvres to handle their ship for the passage to come.

Now this requires not only the common sense of the young people but the skill and experience of the ship’s permanent crew.

The ship has to be able to sail throughout the 24-hour period, day after day if necessary. So the ship’s company is divided into two or three watches. Each watch is on duty for four hours and then rotates with the next for duty. While the rest of the crew is sleeping or relaxing, the work is done by the “stand by” watch.

The voyage continues for six or seven days in the smaller yachts, for a fortnight in the medium sized schooners and for up to three months in the big full-riggers and some of the visits which the ships make to ports coincide with some festivities and be great pleasure.

So, what’s the use of such training? To get used to the sea? To learn to work in a team? To realize that a marine profession is not an entertainment? You may choose any. But former cadets say that when you are coming to the port under sails you feel a bit Christopher Columbus having discovered the New World at least!

WATER MYTHS

The human need for water is universal, independent from the geographical region or the chronological period in cause. Myths concerned with this basic need are widespread in various cultures, testifying this major reality of human life.

Rivers have been deified, connected with myths, stories about mermaids or ghosts. The river is something man has to traverse; it is a passage of some kind. The very ancient feeling of respect man experiences for this vital natural element has led to the development of superstitions and beliefs.

One of the most famous is the Homeric description of Odysseus' visit to the underworld, where he navigated the underworld Acheron River in Epirus. The ancient Greeks believed that the passage to the world of the dead leads through this river, controlled by the boat pilot. The dead had to be equipped with the so-called danake, often put in the mouth of the dead, in order to pay for transport across the river.

FROM THE HISTORY OF SHIP NAMING

The tradition of breaking a bottle of champagne on a ship to christen, name or launch her began in 17th-century in Britain, but its symbolic meaning is much older.

Sailors have always been wary of the unpredictable nature of the sea. To receive protection from the gods, early sailors would sacrifice animals. The Vikings were thought to have even offered human sacrifices to appease the gods of the northern sea.

Jews and Christians were the first to use wine and water in these ceremonies to call upon God to safeguard them while at sea.

One such tradition in Europe involving these elements was the use of the standing cup. Precious metals were fashioned to a large cup called the standing cup. When the ship began to depart, the officer of the ceremony would sip wine from the cup and pour the rest on the deck or over the bow of the ship. Then the cup was usually thrown over the side of the ship. The lucky retriever below could keep the special cup. As navies grew larger and funds more scarce, they began reusing these cups at other launches. In the 17th century, the British navy replaced the standing cup with the practice of breaking a bottle of wine, champagne or other beverage across the bow.

Sponsors of English warships were customarily members of the royal family, senior naval officers, or Admiralty officials. A few civilians were invited to sponsor Royal Navy ships during the nineteenth century, and women became sponsors for the first time. In 1875, a religious element was returned to naval christenings by Princess Alexandra, wife of the Prince of Wales, when she introduced an Anglican choral service in the launching ceremony for battleship Alexandra.

French ship launchings and christenings in the 18th and early 19th centuries were accompanied by unique rites closely resembling marriage and baptismal ceremonies. A godfather for the new ship presented a godmother with a bouquet of flowers as both said the ship's name. No bottle was broken, but a priest pronounced the vessel named and blessed it with holy water.

The first ceremonial bottle breaking recorded in the United States was at the christening of the U.S. Navy warship USS Constitution on Oct. 21, 1797. Capt. James Sever, the first known sponsor of a U.S. Navy ship, broke a bottle of fine Madeira wine over the ship's bowsprit.

Although wine is the traditional "christening fluid," numerous other liquids have been used. Princeton and Raritan were sent on their way in 1843 with whiskey. Seven years later, "a bottle of best brandy was broken over the bow of steam sloop San Jacinto." Steam frigate Merrimack, who would earn her place in naval history as Confederate States of America ironclad Virginia, was baptized with water from the Merrimack River. Admiral David Farragut's famous American Civil War flagship, steam sloop Hartford, was christened by three sponsors—two young ladies broke bottles of Connecticut River and Hartford, Connecticut spring water, while the third sponsor, a naval lieutenant, completed the ceremony with a bottle of sea water.

Champagne, perhaps because of its elegance as the aristocrat of wines, came into popular use as a "christening fluid" only in the late 19th century.

THE LAST TEA CLIPPER

The name of the famous 19^th century tea clipper ‘Cutty Sark’ dates back to 1790, and the epic poem “Tam O’Shanter” by Robert Burns.

This tells the story of Tam’s journey home one stormy night, when he had the great misfortune to encounter a coven of witches, dancing for Satan’s amusement. One of this was not only lovely, but barely attired in a cutty sark (a Scottish name for a short shirt).

When she discovered Tam spying on her, she pursued him and his horse with such vigour that they came within a hair of death. Only by crossing running water – something a witch can’t do – could they save themselves. But Cutty Sark was fast enough to pull off the horse’s tail at the last instant.

When the now legendary tea clipper was launched on the Clyde in 1869, her Scottish owner known as ‘Old White Hat’ Willis, hoped Cutty Sark would be an auspicious name for her.

The origins of the name were well-known to the ship’s apprentices. For whenever she completed her particularly fast passage, they would braid a mare’s tail of rope and place it in the figurehead’s overstretched hand.

They received many occasions to do just that, during the 1870s and 1880s, when Cutty Sark had only one rival on the high seas – the tea clipper Thermopylae, which was given her honorable burial at sea, with all her flags flying, in 1907. Unfortunately, the Suez Canal, saving the steamers 4,000 miles each way, allowed them to gradually take over the sea trade.

A new market required the fast delivery, so the clipper could provide only transporting wool to London from Australia. But she continued working into the early 1920s – an admirable achievement if you consider the average working life of a tea clipper to be about ten years. Many of them were beaten by the sea long before then.

After several changes of owner, Cutty Sark was recognised in the Channel by a sea captain who had admired her since he was an apprentice. Now the only British tea clipper is on her last berthing in Greenwich, being the greatest tourist attraction and reminding of the golden years of the marine nation.