MPEI is first to receive Cuban sign of merit

27 June, 2022, MPEI hosted a solemn ceremony for awarding an honorable order “Nico Lopez”, a Cuban sign of merit, to Nikolay Rogalev, MPEI Rector, and the personnel of the university. MPEI has been a pioneer to this extent, becoming the first educational institution to receive the award.

The ceremony was attended by a delegation of the Republic of Cuba headed by Julio Antonio Garmendia-Peña, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Cuba to the Russian Federation. Sergey Mochalnikov, Deputy Minister of Energy, greeted the guests, along with Yuri Gorskiy, Deputy Director of the National Committee on Economic Сollaboration with the Countries of Latin America.

Nikolay Rogalev, on behalf of MPEI, was given the award by the Deputy Minister of Energy and Mining of the Cuban Republic, Tatyana Amaran-Bogacheva. She noted that the long years of academic, scientific and educational cooperation between the two states provide a springboard for new areas of sectoral and educational cooperation.

“Since 2017, the cooperation between the mining complex of the Republic of Cuba and MPEI has been restored,” said the Deputy Minister. “From then on, our relations with MPEI have been growing and strengthening. The university is already preparing specialists who will soon supervise the construction of new power units in Cuba. In this training, the Rector of MPEI Nikolay Rogalev played a major role, accompanying and strengthening our relationship", - underlined Mrs. Amaran-Bogacheva.

“The collaboration between MPEI and Cuba received a new impulse after our visit to several organizations and leading universities of the country. MPEI is ready to provide knowledge and competences to Cuban teachers and power engineers in the framework of an initiative that belongs to the Vice-premier of the Republic Ramiro Valdez “Creating a prospective Centre of target personnel training of MPEI in Cuba”. Thus, the Energy Program for Cuba developed jointly by Russian and Cuban specialists will involve a number of projects on maintenance, shipping and modernization of TPP equipment carried out by Russian industry. MPEI is given a key role in personnel preparation of this project.
I consider this prize as the highest degree of Cuban authorities’ recognition of our efforts to improve the Power Branch of the Republic. We are going to continue the cooperation to contribute more to the development of the energy industry of Cuba and to the fortification of the relationship between our countries.

In the beginning of 2022, MPEI signed a series of agreements with the leading Cuban Universities on cooperation in the field of the power branch development of the country.

Reference:

Order ─ Sign of Merit "Nico Lopez" (Cuba). Established by Decree-Law No. 30 of the State Council of the Republic of Cuba "On awards, honorary titles and distinctions" of December 10, 1979, and is awarded to honorable power engineers of Cuba for achievements in the energy sector and is awarded by the successful release of energy of the Republic of Cuba for achievements achieved during twenty-five or more years of work in the industry of the Republic of Cuba. Until now, it has not been awarded to educational institutions and foreign specialists.

​​​