Ak Bars Kazan and Amur Khabarovsk play The Academic Game in honor of KFU’s anniversary
A co-promotional event took place on 2 October as part of the 2024/2025 KHL season.
Rector Lenar Safin was among the fans on the bleachers. He noted that throughout all these years one of the oldest universities in Russia has always been the flagship of national education and science. Hundreds of thousands of its graduates have become worthy citizens who have contributed to the prosperity of the country.
Among the graduates of Kazan University there are a number of current and former Ak Bars players: Amir Miftakhov, Evgeny Medvedev, Marat Valiullin, Alexander Stepanov, and KHL president Alexey Morozov.
“For the anniversary of our alma mater we decided to join forces with one of the leading sports teams of Tatarstan and one of the strongest clubs of the KHL to give fans and spectators a real celebration of hockey and science, to familiarize them with the rich history of our university, as well as the latest scientific developments. We see that education and sport are closely interconnected. Thus, in any sport the educational component is very strong, while scientific achievements and discoveries are impossible without strategy, excitement and irrepressible desire to win – to achieve high results,” Lenar Safin emphasized.
The game was also visited by First Deputy Prime Minister of Tatarstan Rustam Nigmatullin, First Deputy Head of the Office of the Rais (Governor) – Head of the Directorate of Work with Territories Ilnur Garipov, and Chairman of the Tatarstan Regional Branch of the Association of Lawyers of Russia Ildar Khalikov.
University employees organized mobile stands in the stadium to familiarize everyone with the KFU’s current projects.
In particular, the Institute of Information Technologies and Intelligent Systems conducted a VR tour around KFU, and the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology provided a unique opportunity to practice important skills in emergency medicine and to practice minimally invasive surgical manipulations. The Institute of Physics offered tryouts for drone operators, and the Institute of Chemistry showed interesting experiments. The Faculty of Law brought a face modeling software demonstration, and the Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and System Engineering showed a mini-zoo with a robot dog and a robot spider. The Naberezhnye Chelny Institute showed a little exhibition of the projects implemented by its Cyber Auto Tech automotive engineering school.
As for the match itself, Ak Bars prevailed 3:2, adding a favorable ambiance to the celebration.