Reciting RTU's 160th anniversary week, the traditional RTU History Day will be held on Monday, 10 October, where several events are planned this year. At 9.30 a.m. in the Conference Hall of the RTU Scientific Library, at 5 Paula Valdena Street, the session of the RTU 63rd International Scientific Conference section «History of Engineering Sciences and Institutions of Higher Education» will begin, where conference participants will have the opportunity to get acquainted with 11 reports on various topics related to the history of our university. The place of the meeting of the section was not chosen by chance this year – after it, the participants will go on a tour, inspecting the buildings of the new RTU Student Campus in Ķīpsala.
At 15.30 p.m. at 6 A/B Ķīpsalas Street, in the corridor between the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Transport and Aeronautics, the scientific monograph «Olympians of Riga Technical University in 110 years. 1912–2022» prepared by RTU Research Centre for Engineering History (RCEH) and the Gallery of RTU Olympians will be opened. The scientific monograph, published in Latvian and English, summarizes the research of RTU RCEH Head, Assistant Professor Ilze Gudro and Professor Alīda Zigmunde on engineering students, graduates, and academic staff who participated in the Olympic Games from 1912 to 2022, on their connection with various sports organizations, as well as about sports at RPI / RTU. The monograph is dedicated to RTU’s 160th anniversary and 110th anniversary, since Latvia and RTU have their own Olympic medal, which was won by Harald Blau, a student of the Department of Architecture of the Riga Polytechnic Institute (graduated in 1913) at the V Games of the Olympiad in Stockholm in 1912, winning 3rd place and bronze medals in clay pigeon (nowadays – Trap) shooting.
The RTU History Day has been held since 2017 in the spirit of the university’s anniversary week. Each History Day is dedicated to a significant event. In 2017, on the first RTU History Day, the RCEH Exhibition Hall was opened at 1 Kronvalda Boulevard; in 2018, the second RTU History Day was dedicated to the centenary of the Republic of Latvia and 50 years since RTU students have been studying in Ķīpsala; in 2019, the third RTU History Day was dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the first Rector of our university, Ernst Nauck; in 2020, the fourth RTU History Day was named «Personalities and an Era», and the papers of the scientific conference were dedicated to a specific person associated with Riga Polytechnicum / Riga Polytechnic Institute / Riga Technical University; in 2021, on the fifth RTU History Day, we remembered the process of establishment and organization of the predecessor of our university – Riga Polytechnicum (RP), which took place more than a year before the official opening of RP on October 14, 1862.
The current territory of Latvia was part of the Russian Empire at that time, and already in May 1861, Tsar Alexander II approved the Regulations of RP, giving the green light to such a university in Riga. On the original of the Regulations is the resolution of Alexander II «Быть по сему!» (Let it happen!), and this document was an official consent to the founding of the university.
The sixth RTU History Day is dedicated to RTU’s 160th anniversary.
