MSU’s Three-Hall Building
As many of you will remember, I played handball for the university team while studying at MSU. I still attend team training sessions to pass my knowledge and experience on to the current generation of players.
The team now trains and plays in a new sports hall in the recently built Lomonosov Building. It did not exist when I was a student; back then, we trained and played in the Three-Hall Building.
The Three-Hall Building takes its name from its three halls for indoor sports: one for basketball, one for volleyball and one multipurpose hall. The multipurpose hall can host handball, futsal, tennis and badminton training and matches. It was there that we trained three evenings a week and played in both the MSU interfaculty tournament and the inter-university student championship.
When I was in my senior years, the handball team from MSU’s Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics came first among the faculties. I can still vividly remember the final, when we fought desperately against the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics team. That same year, the MSU team won the inter-university championship, beating the seemingly invincible team from the Russian State Academy of Physical Culture. After this phenomenal victory, MSU Rector Viktor Sadovnichy held a special reception for the team, treated us to tea and sushki, and gave each of us a souvenir.
This year, the university administration decided to renovate the Lomonosov Building, and the builders, as usual, missed the deadline for the start of the academic year. As a result, our team is currently training in the Three-Hall Building again.
Today’s students wonder how anyone could have played on such a cramped court. For me, however, training in this hall brings back warm memories of my student years. The feeling is particularly strong when I leave an intense Friday evening training session and walk towards the MSU Main Building, its lights beckoning beautifully through the colourful autumn leaves.
My mind drifts back 29 years, to when I was a first-year student at MSU’s Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, making the same walk after training, with a whole weekend and a life full of new experiences ahead of me. And now, after another Friday training session, I walk with MSU, the weekend and a wonderful future ahead of me.
