gh NEW COAST-DWELLERS

In October 2002 twenty young bachelors of the St. Petersburg colleges became 'cost-dwellers', i.e. the trainees of the Russian-German Program called 'Coast-dweller' ('POMOR'). The graduates of the Program will get certificates of degree of two Universities - St. Petersburg and Bremen Universities. The certificates of degree will state that the graduates are polar marine research specialists. Geologists, oceanologists, hydrologists, meteorologists and ecologists are prevailing among future 'coast-dwellers', now they are studying polar regions of the planet together. Program managers hope that their trainees will help in investigation of enormous territories of Russian Arctic Zone, and will also regain the positions lost by Russia in Antarctic.

The fundamental disciplines for 'coast-dwellers' are sciences about the Earth. Lectures are delivered by instructors from the Universities of St. Petersburg, Kiel and Bremen, Maritime Research Center named after Alfred Wegener in Bremerhaven. Specially for the training program purposes, a derelict laboratory at the geography department was transformed into a master class - implementation of the most up-to-date training technologies. The trainees say it is so good that they would live there.

Already in summer 2003 the 'coast-dwellers' will join the geological and oceanological expeditions to investigate the territories of Spitsbergen, Baltic Sea and Laptev Sea. Three semesters later, they will go to respective German companies and institutions for the on the job training, where they will finish writing the master's thesis. After the training is completed, the graduates of the Program will be able to work according to the speciality, for instance, at the Institute of Arctic and Antarctic Zones, scientific research institute OKEANGEOLOGIA (Ocean Geology) or in the companies dealing with oil and gas prospecting on the shelf.

In the future, when the 'Coast-dweller' Program develops further, all lectures will be delivered in English, and the students of different countries of the world will be able to become new 'coast-dwellers'.

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