Russian-Chinese (Harbin) Polytechnic Institute at the stage of its creation (1920-1925): to the 100th anniversary of its establishment

The paper examines the history of the formation of Harbin poly-technical university, which is one of the leading modern universities of the People’s Republic of China and the initial period of its operation as the Russian-Chinese Polytechnic Institute (RCPI). The research is based on reports on the activities of the RCPI for the 1920-1925s, prepared for the Harbin press by its first principle, Russian engineer Alexey Alekseyevich Schelkoff (1876-1942), who found himself in China (since 1920) on the wave of post-October emigration. The studied sources made it possible to present the Institute's organization as a result of joint activities of the Russian and Chinese administration of the Board of the China-Eastern railway and representatives of the emigrant scientific community to provide the road with qualified engineering personnel, to clarify information about the personal composition of the Society for the establishment of the Russian-Chinese Institute from the Chinese side. The article describes the structure of the Institute, highlights the features of financing RCPI and the organization of the educational process. The data on the number and personal of the first RCPI teachers (as of 1923), the dynamics of growth in the number of students in 1920-1924, including information on the number of Chinese students studying at the University, are presented. The names of the first graduates who graduated from the Institute in October 1924 and January 1925 are given.