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Dear Phystech Alumnus/Alumna:

As we sang in the old Phystech Anthem:
"We will disperse
      when the time comes
         in all the world
            from Dolgoprudny"

So it has happened.

Now we live in many different countries,
"unter Palmen in dem Sueden,
  unter Linden an dem Rhein"
as wrote Heinrich Heine about the people he called "Wandermueder".

What actually happened to us?
What are we for ourselves, for the other people?

Do we have something special in common?

When you come to the official Phystech web site, you will read, in the standard officialese, a eulogy to the Institute that looks much alike (or even worse than) a similar text in an American community college. Phystech has never been an ordinary institution. It deserves an inordinary description so that those grown in the Soviet Union and those who lived in the Free World would understand what was different there.

Here is an attempt to write a short essay presenting a non canonical version of one side of this question, what MFTI, the institution, actually is. One of the alums called Phystech "a rose in the dumpster".

When we understand the institution, we may better understand ourselves.

In our opinion the alumni are the most valuable treasure of Phystech -- the base institutes have withered, the campus in Dolgoprudny stagnates. But even if/when MFTI dies, we, the alums, shall remain and shall keep on with remembering the glorious past of this unusual experiment known as Phystech.

Can we be of help to one another?

Our Group 316, Class of 1969 has been lucky in that respect that we have been getting together every year, without any exclusion, sometimes 6, sometimes 16 strong, envolving friends from other groups and classes. The cement keeping us together has a simple name: beer. The other active participants were from groups 318 and 3110. Now quite a few of us turned out to live in the United States, and we began getting together on the Western side of the Atlantic.

We have had five reunions and have started a new tradition in this New World.

But apart from these physical meetings let us try to meet in other, non material ways, on the Internet.

Please come and see the Non Canonical Phystech Home Page at http://www.mipt.vcu.edu, subscribe to our mailing list, PHYSTECH-L, register with the Phystech in the Outer World Database
and perhaps we would be able to identify our common problems and look for some solutions beneficial for all of us.

Some of you could use the data from the sample Phystech curriculum we compiled based on official and semi-official sources.

We are open to your suggestions and are ready to present your opinions and ideas on this web site making it a forum for the Phystech alums in diaspora.

Please spread a word about this invitation to those Phystechs who would not be seen on the web, particularly those who left the Soviet Union in the dark time of the Icon Curtain and the Refuse.

Best regards,

Vlad Olchanski <volchans@vcu.edu>
Alexander Klimenko <klimenko@soix.com>"