Professor Ya.M. Hakkel’s Alma Mater

The peculiarities of S. Petersburg Electrical engineering institute's academic environment to form and develop the future engineers-electricians at the end of the XIX-th – the beginnings of the XX-th centuries have been analysed in the article. The author analyses the scientific and creative potential of the mentioned institute as well since a prominent engineer, scientist and researcher professor Yakov Modestovych Hakkel (Yakov Gakkel) had been an element of that potential for thirty years. The author shows that S. Petersburg Electro-technician institute – the first Russian higher educational establishment for power engineering – from its very beginning was aimed at creating academic, educational and scientific-research environment capable to provide training of highly qualified engineers-electricians, world-known scientists on electric engineering, radio engineering, power engineering, electrical machinery-building. S. Petersburg Electrical engineering institute has always been a leading higher educational establishment in Russian Empire and later on in the USSR. Its place has always been determined not only by its promoters' forethought (they could meet the challenge of those times in training qualified specialists in telegraph business, but also by further development of the institute as scientific-educational centre working out topical directions in science, engineering faculties and departments, research centres in electric and power engineering.