Innopolis is a unique IT city and university, created on the initiative of the government in Tatarstan, not far from Kazan. It is one of the youngest cities in Russia, designed and built from scratch specifically for the development of information technologies and to provide a comfortable environment for IT specialists. Many compare it to Skolkovo, although it has its own particular features. The city and university were designed and built by foreign specialists, with experts from Indonesia handling the architectural design.
Innopolis University began teaching students in 2014, when the first cohort took classes at a temporary campus in Kazan. In September 2015, instruction officially started at the new campus in Innopolis itself, and our class was the second group of students to study at the new facility.
Special attention was paid to the project by Nikolai Nikiforov, who was then the Minister of Communications and Mass Media. He not only oversaw the development of the city and the university but also remained accessible to students and residents. Nikiforov actively participated in the life of Innopolis, was available in the general university and city chats on Telegram, which created a sense of real connection to the authorities and genuine interest in the project’s progress.
The academic programs here are based on the American model, particularly on the standards of Carnegie Mellon University, which was founded in 1900 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. This university is considered one of the world’s leading centers in the field of information technology and engineering. The professors at Innopolis are accredited faculty from Europe, from Carnegie Mellon in America itself, as well as from Russia. All instruction is conducted in English, creating a unique educational environment. Unlike most Russian universities, where the academic year starts in September, at Innopolis, classes begin in mid-August, which was also an unexpected surprise for me.
Upon arrival in Innopolis, I was immediately overwhelmed by mixed feelings: fear, excitement, and anticipation of something new. We were placed in different dormitories: some people were assigned to double rooms, others to five-room blocks. I got a double room, and my roommate was a student from a parallel program in security. This was my first introduction to campus life.
Even before classes started, we were already communicating actively through Telegram chats. In our class group, I was one of the most active members, discussing upcoming events and getting to know my future classmates. It was then that I came across another active personality—a girl with the nickname Telse. The unique thing about Telse was that she presented herself as “he” and insisted on being addressed in the masculine, which caused confusion and surprise.
Our worldviews clashed almost instantly, and to my surprise, this confrontation became known to everyone. The rest of the group watched our disputes with interest, almost like a mini-series. At that point, I didn’t even know what she looked like: instead of a photo, her avatar was a pyramid with an all-seeing eye, a symbol often associated with the Freemasons, Illuminati, and conspiracy theories.
However, the beginning of studies brought its own problems and new impressions. On the very first day, I woke up deaf in my left ear and with severe dizziness. Not understanding what was happening, I decided to go to the campus medical center. Unfortunately, there was no doctor, and I had to return. By evening, my hearing in my left ear had slightly recovered, but a constant ringing appeared. This was the start of my chronic hearing loss in one ear. To this day, I do not know the cause—perhaps it was an infection I picked up in the pool the day before, or maybe something else.
These health problems only increased my anxiety about starting university. Lectures, assignments, and exams were all in English, which added even more pressure. My English was far from perfect: up to that point, I had mostly studied on my own, and the courses I had taken before left me disappointed. At that time, I was saved by the support of my friend Anya from Moscow: we corresponded regularly, and her sincere words of encouragement helped me cope with my worries. She believed in my abilities and always found the right words to keep me from giving up.
When the academic routine became familiar, I started to notice Telse in classes. She liked to stand out with her style: she would often show up to lectures in funny pajama-like animal costumes. It was bold and unusual, especially against the backdrop of the serious university atmosphere. Our “silent standoff” continued in real life—we avoided eye contact and barely spoke, though each of us was aware of the other’s presence.
One of the most colorful courses I encountered was Models of Software Systems, taught by a professor from Colombia named Nestor Catana. The course focused on formal logic and turned out to be one of the toughest: homework was a nonstop flow, and we described various systems using strict logical formalizations.
It was in this class that I really became close with my classmates—Timur F. and Ayk B. Timur was a Tatar from Kamskiye Polyany: rather tall, thin, and calm, always trying to find something positive in everything. Despite his reserved exterior, he readily joined in cheerful company and our conversations about anything and everything. Ayk, on the other hand, was an open and emotional guy from Yerevan, a typical southern student with a neatly trimmed beard and a bright personality. He often complained about the everyday and organizational problems in Innopolis, grumbling that a huge amount of money had been spent, yet flaws remained. Timur picked up on his criticisms, and that’s when I joined in. That’s how our closer friendship started.
Amidst our complaints about the organization and quality of university resources—breakdowns happened regularly, and the roof sometimes leaked—we unexpectedly found common interests. One day I raised the topic of religion with the guys, sharing my own spiritual reflections. Ayk, without embarrassment and even with pride, said that Armenia was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity. Later, I learned that this happened in 301 AD, which only added weight to his words. Timur, for his part, was not an atheist and listened with interest. Against the backdrop of the “materialist” students of Innopolis, our friendly trio stood out: we managed to combine logic and formal models with philosophical conversations about faith and culture.
So we started to work more closely together—not just on academic models. Discussing coursework and assignments grew into conversations about life and the role of the individual in the modern technological world. In the end, studying became a little easier and more enjoyable. These conversations gave me a sense of real student brotherhood—something rare and valuable, especially within the walls of such an ambitious, yet sometimes contradictory university.
The models course was not the only challenging discipline that semester. At the same time, we were taking Managing Software Development (MSD), taught by a visiting professor from Slovakia. This course focused on planning, controlling development, and risk assessment in software projects. However, the key feature of MSD was the requirement to “justify”: any solution or method found had to be supported—with academic sources or logical proofs.
You couldn’t just say, “this solution works”; every step needed to be backed by references to scientific literature or rigorous reasoning. This approach taught me to analyze each concept or methodology even more deeply and to form a solid evidentiary base in my projects.
The first semester was not easy: the workload was so intense that sometimes we had to pull all-nighters, turning in one assignment after another. Each student had their own way of working: some did homework in the dorm, others in our personal university room—which we called the “cave”—or in one of the general meeting rooms available to everyone.
There was always a gym available on campus, and at first, I thought I’d be going there regularly. But when the studies began, I quickly realized that because of the huge number of assignments, I simply had no free time left. I often felt that if I went to the gym now, that would be the very time I needed to finish my homework. Other guys would go to the bar in town, but all I managed to do was go shopping for groceries and return immediately to my studies.
Sometimes the assignments were group projects: we were divided into teams and worked together to earn a common grade. Constantly moving around campus with a laptop became the norm. Studying at Innopolis required you to accumulate a certain number of points throughout the course, and to successfully complete it, you had to do all the assignments—not just pass the final exam, as is often the case at Russian universities.
One of those group projects was for the course Methods: Deciding What to Design. This course was focused on methods of designing software systems and included a practical assignment: choose an existing open-source product and develop new functionality for it using the approaches studied in the course. Our team chose the Signal messenger—an intentional choice, as we were attracted by its open architecture and the opportunity to add useful features to a popular product.
Our task was not only to develop new features but also to justify their necessity, using the approaches covered in class: Agile, Scrum, user interviews, creating user stories, and goal analysis. Working on Signal was not easy, but it was incredibly engaging. I remember our team spending hours in meeting rooms, discussing user requirements and prioritizing tasks in the backlog.
What stood out most for me was working on user stories. We learned to think like users, compiling lists of their needs, and turning those into epics and tasks that we then implemented in code. By the end of the course, our team had added several new features to Signal and defended the project before the professor.
That semester included another course of a completely different format but no less important—PSP (Personal Software Process). This course was dedicated to developing and improving one’s personal approach to working on software projects. Unlike other disciplines, which focused on teamwork and project management, here we studied how to organize our own work efficiently.
Key topics included task planning, time management, and analyzing personal productivity. Special emphasis was placed on data collection techniques, estimating time for tasks, and managing the development process efficiently. One of the interesting techniques the instructor recommended was the Pomodoro Technique, invented by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s. The idea was to break work into short 25-minute intervals, called “pomodoros,” with mandatory breaks in between. This approach not only improved focus but also helped avoid fatigue buildup.
Among that semester’s courses, Communication for Software Engineers stood out. This course focused on developing communication skills, which are so important for engineers. We learned how to effectively convey ideas, create technical presentations, and interact with colleagues and management in challenging situations.
One of the core parts of the course was learning the basics of scientific and technical presentations: how to structure slides, use visual elements, and hold the audience’s attention. We were also asked to analyze the speeches of well-known speakers, such as Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist and author on decision-making, and Yves Morieux, a business expert specializing in process simplification and improving team interactions.
In addition to presentation skills, the course covered topics such as conflict management and negotiation strategies. We studied how to resolve disputes within a team, find compromises, and interact with management using “if-then” statements and other negotiation techniques. The practical assignments—where we had to present our ideas, justify them, and defend them before the group—were especially memorable, helping me become more confident in public speaking and working with people.
However, not everything went smoothly. Once, when Ayk and I were doing homework for the models course, we had an unpleasant incident. Our work ended up being so similar that Nestor Catana decided we had copied from each other. At Innopolis, this was strictly prohibited—there was a zero-tolerance policy for any form of cheating. As a result, both our assignments were rejected, and we each received a zero. It was upsetting and scary because the system as a whole seemed broken in terms of harsh rules and a lack of compromise. But the fact remained: we were accused of cheating, and the penalty was severe.
But the episode with Ayk was not the only time I faced unfair grading. A similar situation happened with Timur in the Managing Software Development course. We were doing individual assignments, but in discussing the tasks, some of our ideas converged. The professor noticed the similarity and called us in for a talk. He asked several clarifying questions to figure out what had happened.
I honestly explained that I had completed the work independently, but during discussions with Timur, some of our conclusions might have overlapped. However, I may have misunderstood one of the professor’s questions, as the conversation was in English. In the end, he decided to give me zero points, while Timur received a high grade. This episode became not just a lesson for me, but also a reason to rethink my approach to assignments and communication with professors.
Nestor Catana’s lectures in the models course were always distinctive. They started at 9 a.m., and every time we entered the classroom, we knew we were in for another slog through formal logic. Catana’s lectures were not only informative but included an element that became an inside joke for our group. We noticed that he often used the word “basically,” and over time we made a tradition of counting how many times he would say it during a class. One day, we counted up to two hundred, which made us laugh uncontrollably.
There was another episode that I especially remember. On November 9, 2016, a Wednesday, we had another models class, starting at 9 a.m. as usual. But this time the atmosphere was different: everyone was following the U.S. presidential election results, which had been held the day before. We were eagerly waiting for the outcome, and while Nestor Catana lectured, we secretly checked Telegram, where people were discussing the vote count. At the end of the class, one of our colleagues wrote a short message: “Trump won.” This event, unexpected and momentous, stuck in my memory as the time when the U.S. elections intersected with our university lectures.
A month before final exams, Nestor Catana announced that in order to successfully pass the course, we needed to complete a group project: to create a program—an Android game—using formal logic. We had to form teams of four. I immediately invited Timur and Ayk, but soon Telse was added to our team. This was a real challenge: my main “adversary” from the Telegram chat was now on my team.
In reality, I ended up doing the whole project myself. In a month, I learned everything I needed, wrote the program, got it working, and thoroughly prepared for the defense. Timur and Ayk helped only partially, and Telse did not participate at all. Nevertheless, on the day of the defense—which was part of our first exam session—we all sat together in front of the professor. I demonstrated the program, explained the logic and details of the code. Nestor Catana was satisfied and gave all of us high grades. Thanks to my efforts, Telse passed the first session successfully without contributing any effort.
It is important to note that this group project was only part of the exam. The project defense added certain points to the overall course grade, but we also had to take a written exam, which we completed in the classroom on paper and submitted to Nestor Catana for grading. Without this written component, the exam would have been incomplete, and no group work would have saved us from failing.
Despite all the difficulties, I managed to cope with the workload in all subjects for the first session. In addition to the tough models course with Nestor Catana, I had to complete assignments for other disciplines and pass written and oral tests. Finishing the session according to American standards became an important achievement for me: I proved to myself that I could overcome any obstacles and see things through to the end.
And after the first session, Telse left the university. I do not know why she made that decision, but sometimes I wonder: perhaps our project influenced her choice. Maybe continuing to study alongside me became impossible for her.
