Teacher: St. Petersburg’s publishing heritage was sacrificed for the sake of optimization

In St. Petersburg, the struggle of teachers for the book publishing heritage continues, which the city may lose due to the closure of a specialty in one of the educational institutions. Julia Markova, lecturer at the Academy of Urban Environment Management, Urban Planning and Printing (AUGSGiP), told a Rosbalt correspondent about the course of the information campaign.

According to her, the city has lost many industry traditions after the merger of the iconic St. Petersburg Publishing and Printing College with the St. Petersburg College of Construction Industry and Municipal Economy (KSIiGH). As a result, AUGSGiP arose, where Markova teaches, and the result of optimization was the closure of the specialty “publishing” in 2021, which is officially considered unclaimed. Over the past six months, appeals to the Smolny and the deputies did not help.

“We just turned to anyone. No response. The “publishing business” is still closed, we work only in graduation groups. On TV, beautiful words are voiced to us, but in reality everything turns out like this. The publishing heritage of St. Petersburg was sacrificed for the sake of optimization. But this problem is out of politics. On the contrary, political forces had to unite in order to preserve history. We can’t get through to anyone. Stop!” Markova was outraged.

In her opinion, the publishing experience accumulated in the city since the 1930s will disappear, while new specialists will be trained in non-core educational institutions where there are no experts in the industry, like in the former publishing and printing college.

Read more about the history of the struggle of teachers for historical heritage in the material of Rosbalt.