OREANDA-NEWS. April 27, 2011. The Nuclear Energy Information Center was opened in St. Petersburg on April 20. The Center will work on the base of St. Petersburg State Institute of Technology (Technical University).

More than 60 people were present at the ceremony, including representatives of State Government, Academic Community, heads of nuclear industry enterprises, mass media. Director of Rosatom State Corporation Communications Department Sergey Novikov, President of St. Petersburg State Technical University Nikolay Lisitsyn, Director of Rosenergoatom Concern OJSC branch — Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant Vladimir Pereguda, Secretary of Leningrad region Public Chamber Jury Turusov and Head of Admiralteisk district (St. Petersburg) Nikolay Linchenko greeted the gathered people. All of them expressed great expectations, connected with the Information Center opening, and wished its employees good luck.

Ceremony master, disguised as a scientist, Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, demonstrated the gathered people a bright experiment of the Entertaining Chemistry Theatre : production of “Granite of Science”, Russian Government support and Magic. As a result, the scientist created a new chemical element – “Centrium-2011”, which was symbolized by a bright and positive orange.

This orange was solemnly presented to Director of the Department of Communications of Rosatom State Corporation Sergey Novikov, who in his opening speech underlined the long-felt need of a competent and, what was more important, maximally complete informing of people and, first of all the oncoming generation, about everything that was related to nuclear industry. Today, after the events at Fukushima, educational activity is twice more important as it prevents people from erroneous understanding of nuclear power industry, Sergey Novikov believes.

His thought was supported by President of St. Petersburg Institute of Technology Nikolay Lisitsyn, who, in his turn, noted that such centers had increased the children’s interest in sciences, which meant the increase in their wish to get an access to fundamental knowledge in various technological areas of science, including nuclear power engineering.

“It is nice that the industry administration works at the realization of strategic challenges, including work with the younger generation and popularization of technical disciplines among schoolchildren,” Lisitsyn said.

LNPP Director Vladimir Pereguda expressed the assurance that the Center would become an attractive communication site and an important element of the policy of work with the younger generation.