This morning, I was woken by the unfamiliar sound of other peoples’ alarms. After I slept a little more, I noticed how others were already eating breakfast. I heard some complains about the food and at some point I went out of bed to try some of the breakfast for myself. Some said it would be better when heated up so I had put it in the microwave. The breakfast was a box with a cube-shaped egg, slices of tomato and cucumber, a pancake with cheese and a saussage. Everyting looked like it was machine-made in a factory and the egg tasted as if it was made to accomodate for the taste of all Russians. After breakfast we went to the metro station to visit the Polytechnic University. On the way to the metro station I noticed that the traffic lights were a little different than back home. They count down to when the lights change colour. A pretty useful feature!
At the metro station it took a lot of time for the committee to get our metro passes. For every pass they had to pay separately and get a receipt. This was quite a bureaucratic procedure, but we already noticed the Russians are fond of their bureaucracy. Also several bags where checked before we could enter the metro. On the escalators to the metro platform, I noticed that the left side of the steps were a lot more worn: I could see footsteps in the metal! Also there was a lady in a small cabin at the bottom of the stairs who checked if there where no accidents on the escalator.
When we arrived at the Polytechnic University we first listened to a presentation of the university. After the presentation we were shown some demo’s. We first looked at a project that was about how to check if oil wells are shut off correctly. This is possible through measuring the response of a electromagnetic pulse. After this we received a short presentation about surge arresters and they explained and demonstrated the workings of these high-voltage devices. There also was a very old and very large transformer station that could go up to seven megavolts. Some part of it looked as if it was some kind of death ray or doomsday device straight out of a sci-fi film.
They demonstrated a test of a surge arrester in a small bunker. They charged several massive capacitors and put 50 kilo amperes on the surge arrester to simulate a lighting strike. We heard a loud bang and saw a bright flash, and we could later see from the high speed camera that the surge arrester successfully stopped the fault current.
We had a good lunch in the university cafetaria and an hour of free time. We continued the day by visiting ITMO University, where we got a short presentation and a tour in the robotics lab. After ITMO we returned to the hostel. I took a short nap and went well rested to dinner. We booked a spot in a nice Georgian restaurant. It was a good dinner and for the ones that were still in for dessert we went somewhere for some ice cream. It was a day full of new experiences and we learned something about the work that is going on in the Saint Petersburg Universities.
– Rutger van Anrooij