How it started
Founding and vision
There was a task in the USSR – to prepare 435,000 engineers and technicians in five years (1930–1935) during the USSR industrialization period, while their number in 1929 was 66,000.
Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University) was established on 20 March 1930 as Higher Aero-mechanical college (VAMU) by the order of Supreme Soviet of the National Economy in order to ensure training of qualified personnel for the aviation industry. The Aero-mechanical faculty of Bauman Moscow State Technical University formed the basis of the new university. On 29 August 1930, the university was renamed as Moscow Aviation Institute. In the beginning it had 3 departments, Aeronautical, Aircraft engines and Aerodynamics. On its tenth anniversary in 1940, the university had established itself as a premier aeronautical university with 38 departments, 22 laboratories and a Student design office and production facility.
The uniqueness of the MAI is that historically it was created to train specialists for almost all departments and teams in the Design Bureaus of the aviation industry.
World War II
On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The students and faculty members were mobilized to work in aircraft workshops and design offices. Many students signed up to join the armed forces during the Battle of Moscow, many continued to work aircraft production facilities and armaments workshops.
From Wikipedia’s article on Moscow Aviation Institute, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2