Tver State Technical University, Tver, Russia:

O. S. Misnikov, Dean of the Faculty of Nature Management and Ecological Engineering, Professor, Doctor of Engineering Sciences
L. V. Kopenkina, Associate Professor, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, lvkopenkina@mail.ru

The Moscow Mining Academy, founded in 1918 to train mining engineers, played an important role in the development of higher education in the field of peat. The need for training in peat extraction and processing in Russia arose with the increased demand for peat fuel. The Exploration Faculty of the Moscow Mining Academy introduced the discipline of Peat Mining and Production. With the development of the peat industry and an increase in the scale of peat extraction, the Peat Department was initiated at the Moscow Mining Academy. The question of the transformation of the Peat Department into an independent Peat Faculty was raised by the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Economic Council in connection with the need to increase the number of engineers for the peat industry. In 1930 the Moscow Mining Academy was reorganized. The Moscow Peat Institute was established on the basis of the Peat Faculty and was the only higher education institution for training specialists in all areas of peat mining and processing until the 1950s. The spring of the Moscow Peat Institute provided rapid advancement in the science and technology of peat production. The Moscow Peat Institute has always been both an educational and research institution. Over thee period of 1930–1958, the Moscow Peat Institute prepared about 4 thousand specialists for the peat industry. In after years, the Moscow Peat Institute was moved to Kalinin (now Tver) and was named: Kalinin Peat Institute (1958); Kalinin Polytechnic Institute (1965), Tver State Technical University (since 1994). Peat mining and production is still a priority at the Tver State Technical University. Development of new directions in the studies of the properties of raw peat and methods of their implementation in new technologies, the fundamental basis of which was laid down at the Moscow Mining Academy, is being successfully carried out at the Tver State Technical University.

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