Karl May School

In 1838, he had graduated with distinction from St. Peter's Principal German College and in 1845 from the historical-philological faculty of the Imperial St-Petersburg University.

During its first years the school was elementary, consisting of three classes, but beginning in 1861 it received the official title of "Modern School [Natural Science College] of Gymnasium Rank", which reflected its intensively applied direction in advanced secondary education (in comparison to State educational institutions).

At the end of the 1850s one of the school performances opened with herald walking with flags emblazoned with May bugs; the director and all present were very pleased with this symbol.

The school's principal motto was the founder of modern pedagogics, Yan Amos Komensky: First love, then teach.

In accordance with this slogan, a collective of educators was formed, consisting only of people possessing high moral and professional qualities.

The writer Lev Uspensky, a 1918 graduate of the school, remarked in his memoirs (paraphrased): At May there are not and could not be educator-obscurantists, teacher-Black Hundred members, or bureaucrats in uniform.

Its participants, in terms of both social position and national identification, were quite diverse, without discrimination: Swiss children, sons of the princes Garin, Galitzine, the counts Olsufev and Stenbok-Fermor, representatives of the entrepreneur families Vargunin, Durdin, Elisseeff, Tortonov, and scions of the liberal intelligentsia Benois, Bruni, Grimm, Dobuzhinsky, Roerich, Rimsky-Korsakov, Semenov-Tyan-Shanskii, among others.

In this school, boys representing nearly all of the national diasporas of St Petersburg were educated — Russians, Germans, French, English, Tatars, Jews, Finns, Chinese, etc.

Children who appeared inclined towards the humanities were designated Latinists and in the initial years studied in that division, later to be renamed Gymnasium.

Gymnasium students, having studied for nine years, as a general rule prepared for the continuation of their education at university.

Thanks to this structure, in 1881 the official title of this secondary educational institution became "K. May Gymnasium and Natural Science College".

Under his directorship the method of teaching was perfected, the natural science division developed, and the equipment of the classrooms and laboratories improved.

Krakaw, the new director was a selected graduate of the historical-philosophical faculty, the magistrate of Slavic studies Aleksandr Lavrentovich Lipovsky (1867-1942).

The second event resulted from the fact that with the school's growing popularity, the space it occupied was beginning to be inadequate.

39 on the 14th line was taken over, and according to the plan of master architect G.D. Grimm (an 1883 graduate), a unique new building was built with a bas-relief May bug above the arc of the entrance way.

In four floors, along with classrooms for 650 occupants, eight beautifully equipped specific-subject classrooms were built—for physics, chemistry, natural history, history, geography, drawing, modeling, and choir (three of these had auditoriums in the form of amphitheaters); there were additionally a carpentry studio, a library numbering 12 000 books in Russian, German, French, English, Latin and Greek, a sports hall and a cafeteria.

Various circles were active: literary (publishing a printed paper, "The May collection"), historical, maritime, photographic, sporting, and aircraft-modeling (in which N.V. Fausek, a 1913 graduate, built the first model aircraft in Russia).

May Gymnasium and Natural Science College Field Hospital was opened in the school in September 1914; all the auxiliary duties were fulfilled by the students.

This piece of history was described in greater detail for the first time in the book (published 1990) The School on Vasilievskii, authored by several former "May-bugs"—academic D.S.

The "May" pedagogical traditions were in one way or another preserved until the winter of 1929, when as a result of an extensive anti-bourgeois press campaign and the publication of unfounded accusations in the newspaper "Leningrad Pravda," from 15 January 1929 the school's educators and management were largely replaced—even the bas-relief above the entranceway was destroyed.

Graduates of the 6 SAS distinguished themselves brilliantly on the fronts of the World War II, defended and liberated their native Leningrad, stormed Berlin and the Reichstag; 111 of them died courageously.

The museum directs the students in active patriotic work, with the aid of veterans, led by General-major V.G.

After the lifting of the Leningrad blockade, from September 1944, lessons were begun again, only now the educational institution was called the Men's High School no.

In connection with a collapse of ceiling plaster in 1976 (requiring a renovation), the collective of educators and students were temporarily moved to another building on the 13th line (no.

All the unique classroom equipment, the furniture, memorial plaques with the names of former graduates of various years, busts of writers and scholars, and the decorated interiors were left to the whims of fate.

From 1978 to the present day, the former school building has been occupied by the St. Petersburg Institute of Information Technology and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Golubeva, then head of Administration of Education and Culture of the Vasilievskii district—in 1994 made the decision to create a museum of the history of the K.I.

After two days one more plaque appeared on the building, immortalizing the memory of the presence of the 6th Special Artillery School.

In the following years the museum tripled in size, and its archives now contain more than 4000 preserved items: objects, documents, photographs, audio- and videocassettes.

During this period about 500 groups—consisting of schoolchildren, educators, scholars, representatives of various associations, ordinary residents of Petersburg and other Russian cities, as well as guests from Linz, London, New York City, Paris, Seoul, Sofia, Torino, Ulaanbaatar and even Sydney and Brisbane were introduced to the history of the school and left grateful messages in the visitor's book.