With his good looks, he could have easily become a movie star in an autobiographical feature film with a gripping plot. At the same time, one could have been just describe his life and make a script out of it, and there would be no need to invent anything, because fate itself had invented everything.
Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Sciences (Chemistry) German Vyatkin, the legendary rector of South Ural State University, who headed his alma mater for twenty years, is celebrating his 90th birthday. What a beautiful number! How much it contains! Just listing the regalia of this honorary citizen of Chelyabinsk and the Chelyabinsk Region would require a separate publication. Behind each award and title are incredible achievements!
Unconventional approaches
Commitment to the cause, responsibility, wisdom and strategic thinking have forever become his faithful companions. He knows the taste of victory well. Meanwhile, German Vyatkin figured out the formula for success back in his youth. In order to get strong results, you need to clearly define priorities, spare no time and effort on the way to your goals, learn from the best and cooperate with the best.
Many of these "best" ones became his like-minded people, followers, and sometimes even close people whom he values very much. On the eve of the significant event, we have met with colleagues from the close setting of German Vyatkin. They have shared their impressions, memories and interesting stories that became expressive strokes to the portrait of the hero of the day. But first, let us mention a few curious facts characterizing the scale of his personality.
The scientific works by German Vyatkin were distinguished not only by their deep fundamentality, but also solved many technological problems in metallurgy. Based on the research conducted under his supervision, recommendations were developed aimed at solving environmental problems.
He headed the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute in 1985, the year when Perestroika began, during a period of crisis in the political system and all spheres of public life. Science was in decline. Thanks to his leadership talent and unique ability to "look into the future," the rector managed not only to preserve but also to develop the university in the conditions of a new economic formation.
As extraordinary leader he always had unconventional approaches and solutions. It is enough to recall the construction of housing for teachers and scientists in difficult times. During Perestroika, each doctor of sciences received keys to a new apartment from German Vyatkin's hands.
During the difficult for universities post-Perestroika period, rector German Vyalkin came up with an ambitious Russia-scale project. Construction of an Olympic-class swimming pool with conditions for holding international competitions began. It was a serious engineering structure, the uniqueness of which was that a sports hall was located above the pool. The project was being implemented for a long time and with difficulty. There were periods when the builders worked, as they say, for food. But even then, German Vyatkin carefully approached the issue of quality. If he noticed an uneven wall somewhere, he made them disassemble it and do it again.
It was he who came up with the initiative to create technical universities in Russia, for which he was awarded the Russian Presidential Prize. In 1990, the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute named after the Lenin Komsomol became Chelyabinsk State Technical University (CSTU). Fourteen of its branches appeared in Russia, and the fifteenth was opened in Manhattan, New York.
Along with technical areas, German Vyatkin also developed the humanitarian block. In 1997, CSTU was transformed into South Ural State University, becoming a multi-purpose university. An important nuance: SUSU acquired multidisciplinary capabilities not through merging with other universities, but thanks to its own development.
His life's motto sounds like "I will find a way or make one" (from Latin Aut viam inveniam aut faciam). And he made this motto to be the motto of his alma mater. German Vyatkin was the initiator of the emergence of supercomputer and digital technologies, nanotechnologies and other new scientific fields at the university. Thanks to German Vyatkin, the image of the main building of SUSU became the hallmark of Chelyabinsk and the South Ural region. A spire appeared, topped with a two-meter coat of arms of Russia, and sculptures by People's Artist of Russia Vardkes Avakyan "Student", "Prometheus" and "Nike", which visually form a triangle symbolizing the relationship between knowledge and glory. The author of this allegory and the initiator of the composition was German Vyatkin.
Beautiful results! But few people know what efforts, nerves and sleepless nights they cost. For example, the reconstruction of the main building of the university was carried out in the most difficult economic conditions. When there was no money at all to pay the builders, Vyatkin paid them with his salary.
As the head of the Chelyabinsk Scientific Centre of the Ural Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, German Vaytkin assembled a team of world-class historians and archaeologists at the university. On his initiative and under his leadership, a fundamental work was created − the eight-volume History of the South Urals.
German Vyatkin's idea to film the historical chronicle of our region was also brought to life. A team of SUSU filmmakers under his leadership created the South Urals. Traces of Ages feature documentary film, which received a large number of awards at international and all-Russian creative competitions.
"Physicist" and "lyricist"
It is rare that you meet a scientist who, in addition to competence in his main field, has great knowledge and skills in areas that are not related to it. According to Doctor of Sciences (Physics and Mathematics) Valery Beskachko, German Vyatkin also belongs to this category of people, for whom “physics” and “lyrics” are closely mixed. Moreover, this quality he has is revealed during the very first communication with him.
“We met in the early 70s, when I was a graduate student, and German Vyatkin was a doctoral student at the Ural Scientific Centre of the USSR Academy of Sciences,” recalls the Professor of the SUSU Department of Physics of Nanoscale Systems. “We lived in the same dormitory, and German Vyatkin often came to our room in the evenings, where the graduate student "activists" had gathered by that time. Soon the conversation moved from the plane of pressing matters to a dispute about "how the state gets rich... when it has a simple product", "why Prince Potemkin is Tauride Prince" or to a discussion of the charter of the Imperial Moscow University. He spoke very interestingly about people of art — writers, sculptors, theatre artists, especially about ballet, the life of which he knew not from books, since his wife was a prima ballerina.
German Vyatkin is well acquainted with the works of many thinkers, including Struve, Stolypin, Kropotkin, Berdyaev. He often quotes them. Once, when he was already a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and rector, while discussing some work problem, I dropped the phrase: "Yes... as they say, our land is rich, there is just no order". He noticed that I was inaccurately quoting the famous work by Alexei Tolstoy, History of the Russian State from Gostomysl to Timashev, and began to recite from memory: "Listen, guys, to what your grandfather will tell you. Our land is rich, there is just no order in it".
This composition consists of 83 quatrains. German Vyatkin managed to rescite about a dozen and a half of them, but then he was distracted by a telephone call. If it hadn’t been for that, I think he would have finished reading the History… from memory to the end.
"He is a man of the era, possessing high nobility, unbreakable will and powerful intellect". This is how Honoured Scientist of the Russian Federation Nikolai Parfentyev and Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation Nataliia Parfentyeva speak about the hero of the day. He led SUSU to victory in a difficult historical period of our country's development and did the main thing − he was able to give the Polytechnic Institute a new lease of life, creating conditions for its transformation into a university of a high academic level.
“We met German Vyatkin in 2000, which became a milestone for us,” the Parfentyevs recall. “By that time, already being professors, doctors of sciences, we accepted his invitation and every minute we've been thanking fate for cooperation with this wonderful person, for his friendly disposition towards us. Thanks to his support, we have always tried to make a feasible contribution to the transformation of the university into a centre of culture and science. German Vyatkin generously shares his talent and ideas with us, inspiring us to implement creative projects. He is a role model and example of devotion to science for us, a standard of honour, integrity, attentive and caring attitude towards people. A true Russian intellectual. And that says it all.”
German Vyatkin implemented a great project, recreating the originally conceived architectural appearance of SUSU with a spire aimed at the sky. Exhibitions in the art hall, an art museum with a thousand exhibits of works of modern art, a department that trains art historians and theologians, Bachelor's and Master's degree students and postgraduates, including from China, Brazil and Iran... Without German Vyatkin, without his love for art and culture, all this simply would have not existed, just as it does not exist in other universities in our region.
To be concluded