‘You Will Always Be in Our Hearts!’

Published: Thursday, 05 May 2016 03:31

In spite of its official status, a final meeting of the main participants of a large-scale international retraining project organized for the Antillana de Acero factory in Havana, Cuba, which took place on 27 April, was quite emotional. Following a certificate distribution ceremony the retrainees had an opportunity to speak about the three months they had spent on the project and to find out what the Russian organizing party think of the project.

According to HR Manager of the Antillana de Acero factory Rosita Lopez, who is a team leader, a lot depends on the 15 retrainees who, upon return to Cuba, will be expected to share the knowledge gained with their colleagues. Each retrainee is supposed to train 10 workers out of 2,000 total personnel.

The NMSTU rector Valery Kolokoltsev referred to the training results as a great success, which became possible thanks to commitment of both the NMSTU academics and the Cuban workers. Valery Kolokoltsev believes that the training will lay the basis for the retrainees to successfully lead the revamping process at their Cuban factory.

Rosita Lopez pointed out that it was due to well-coordinated efforts of everybody involved in the project that the project saw such a successful completion. A special tribute was given to the interpreters who supported the Cubans during their training.

“Now we understand why NMSTU is what Russia is proud of. The university has top-level academics who offer top-level knowledge”, one of the Cuban retrainees admitted.

“We are simply astonished at your kindness to us,” another Cuban worker said. “It was a great surprise and pleasure for us when the rector himself visited our class to ask us how we were doing. You will always be in our hearts!”

At the end of the meeting the participants expressed their expectations for successful development of the project.

Anna Kartavtseva, photos by Vladimir Kosenkov