Sergey Ivanilov

Sergey Ivanilov
Sergey Andreyevich Ivanilov in his office.jpg Sergey Andreyevich Ivanilov in his office.jpg Ivanilov in his office, 2002
Native name	Сергей Андреевич Иванилов
Born	(1938-02-15) 15 February 1938 Belogorsk, Amur Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
🏳️ Nationality	Soviet, Russian
💼 Occupation
🏅 Awards	Order of the Red Banner of Labour Honoured Worker of Transport of the Russian Federation (1993) Betancourt Medal

Sergey Andreyevich Ivanilov (; born 15 February 1938) is a Soviet and Russian railway engineer, educator and academic administrator. He was the first vice-rector of the Far Eastern State Transport University (FESTU) in Khabarovsk from 1986 to 2007, holding the post through the institution's transformation from a branch institute into a university. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and in 1993 was given the honorary title Honoured Worker of Transport of the Russian Federation. Since 2016 he has published a series of books on the history of the university and on engineering education, several of them under the pen name Ivan Nilov (Иван Нилов), a play on his own surname.

Early life and education

Ivanilov was born on 15 February 1938 in Belogorsk, a railway junction town on the Transbaikal Railway in the Amur Oblast. He left secondary school No. 17 in 1955 and in 1957 graduated from Technical School No. 12 in Belogorsk as an electrical technician in railway signalling and remote control.

He worked as a signalling fitter and electrical technician on the Amur Railway, and then returned to Technical School No. 12 as a workshop instructor and teacher. There he built a training ground with working railway signalling installations that allowed train control conditions to be simulated; models of signalling and remote-control systems made by his students were exhibited at the VDNKh exhibition in Moscow.

In 1958 he enrolled in the correspondence department of the Khabarovsk Institute of Railway Transport Engineers (KhabIIZhT), graduating in 1964 as a transport engineer in signalling, remote control and communications. In 1982 he also completed a university of Marxism–Leninism, part of the Soviet system of political education for party members.

Academic career

In 1965 Ivanilov was elected a senior lecturer at KhabIIZhT in the field in which he had qualified. His research dealt with the automation of large classification yards. After a year of postgraduate study at the Moscow Institute of Railway Transport Engineers (now the Russian University of Transport) he defended a dissertation in 1968 on the principal problems and future tasks of automating high-capacity classification yards, receiving the degree of Candidate of Sciences in engineering; he was later given the academic ranks of docent and professor.

He worked as a docent and professor and headed a department; he served successively as the first dean of the faculty of signalling, remote control and communications, as secretary of the institute's Communist Party committee for five years, and as dean of the faculty for the further training of railway managers and specialists. He designed and built more than thirty laboratory installations with accompanying teaching materials for courses including block signalling, remote control of points and signals, power supplies, special measurements, and train dispatching systems.

As head of the further-training faculty he organised retraining courses at the institute for railway managers and for the builders of the Baikal–Amur Mainline. The faculty was the first in the Soviet railway industry to retrain diesel-locomotive engineers of the Transbaikal and Far Eastern railways as electric-traction engineers, in preparation for the electrification of the railways of the Russian Far East.

Vice-rector, 1986–2007

In 1986 Ivanilov was appointed vice-rector for academic affairs, and subsequently first vice-rector, of KhabIIZhT by order of the Soviet Minister of Railways. He held the post for more than 21 years, during which the institution became the Far Eastern State Academy of Railway Transport in 1993 and the Far Eastern State Transport University in 1997.

His work in this period included the introduction of continuous mathematical, computing and legal training for students; the founding of a lyceum attached to the university; a three-tier quality management system for teaching and the introduction of the first generation of Russian state educational standards; the creation of an association of railway transport educational institutions in eastern Russia; the licensing of bachelor's and master's programmes; and the formation of a vertically integrated university complex combining the university with railway technical colleges, with outlying branches reorganised as regional institutes of railway transport.

He took part in preparing the university's programme "Innovative Research and Education Transport Complex in the Russian Far East", carried out under the national priority project for education, which received federal funding.

Ivanilov was responsible for the work of the university's academic council. He signed a number of academic co-operation and exchange agreements with universities in the Asia-Pacific region, under which Russian–American, Russian–Korean and Russian–Chinese educational programmes were run. He was elected a corresponding member of the International Higher Education Academy of Sciences, and for his work on international programmes he received honorary academic robes from the University of Alaska Anchorage in the United States and from Woosong University in South Korea.

He retired from the university on 13 December 2007.

Later activity

After retiring Ivanilov worked as an analytical adviser to the general director of the company Ali and then as an adviser to the rectorate of FESTU. From 2016 he turned to writing, publishing a series of books of essays and memoirs on the history of the university, several under the pen name Ivan Nilov. Electronic copies of twelve of his books have been deposited with the Far Eastern State Research Library in Khabarovsk and are available to readers through its catalogue. His book Gaudeamus, an account of a decade of academic co-operation between FESTU and the University of Alaska Anchorage, was presented at the library on 22 October 2025.

Ivanilov was elected a deputy of the Belogorsk town, Khabarovsk district and Khabarovsk city soviets of people's deputies, and was a member of the Khabarovsk city committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and of the board of the Khabarovsk regional and all-Russian Knowledge Society.

Awards and honours

The list below follows the chapter devoted to his awards in Ivanilov's autobiographical essay Bylye dni (2025).

State awards:

• Order of the Red Banner of Labour, for organising the retraining of railway engineering staff
• Honoured Worker of Transport of the Russian Federation, conferred by presidential decree of 24 July 1993 for services to railway transport and long service
• Jubilee Medal "For Valiant Labour. In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
• Medal "In Commemoration of the 850th Anniversary of Moscow"

Departmental awards of the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Railways:

• Betancourt Medal, for a personal contribution to transport science and education
• Badges "Honoured Worker of Transport of Russia" and "Honoured Railwayman", the latter for developing laboratory facilities and teaching materials in specialist subjects
• Medal "30 Years of the Baikal–Amur Mainline", badge "150 Years of the Railways" and medal "180 Years of the Railways of Russia"
• Laureate of the prize of the Russian trade union of railway and transport construction workers; presentation watches from the Minister of Railways and from the head of the Far Eastern Railway
• Badge "For Excellent Achievements in Work" of the Soviet Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialised Education

Other departmental and regional awards:

• Medal "For Valour", 1st class, and badge "For Distinguished Service" from the commanders of the Railway Troops and the Border Troops; medal "150 Years of the Railway Troops of Russia"; badge "Distinguished Border Guard", 2nd class
• Medals of ROSTO (DOSAAF): "80 Years of OSOAVIAKhIM, DOSAAF, ROSTO" and "Alexander Pokryshkin, First Three-Time Hero of the Soviet Union"
• Awards of the Sakha Republic: the diamond-set badges "370 Years of Yakutia with Russia" and "375 Years of Yakutia with Russia", the badge "Honoured Worker of Railway Transport of the Sakha Republic", certificates of honour from the state assembly (Il Tumen), and a presentation gold watch from the assembly
• Commemorative badge "150 Years of Khabarovsk" from the mayor of Khabarovsk
• Gold badge No. 1 "For Services to the Development of the University", awarded by the academic council of FESTU, which Ivanilov described as the award that mattered most to him

Selected works

• Ivanilov, S. A.; Grigorenko, V. G.; Rimlyand, E. Yu. (2008). Protsessy integratsii v transportnom obrazovanii [Integration processes in transport education] (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. ISBN 978-5-262-00463-8. Search this book on
• Ivanilov, S. A.; Mamedov, N. A. (2012). Slagayemye uspeshnogo biznesa [The components of a successful business] (in русский). Khabarovsk: VAL. Search this book on
• Ivanilov, S. A., ed. (2016). Viktor Grigoryevich Grigorenko: a life for his university (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. Search this book on
• Nilov, Ivan (2017). Tsennosti [Values] (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. Search this book on
• Nilov, Ivan (2017). Sled na zemle, ili Smysly professora Dmitrenko [A trace on the earth, or the meanings of Professor Dmitrenko] (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. Search this book on
• Nilov, Ivan (2019). Novatsii [Innovations] (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. Search this book on
• Nilov, Ivan (2021). Integratsiya [Integration] (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. Search this book on
• Nilov, Ivan (2024). Pod stuk kolyos [To the sound of the wheels] (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. Search this book on
• Nilov, Ivan (2024). Komandirovka v Angliyu [A posting to England] (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. Search this book on
• Ivanilov, S. A. (2025). Bylye dni [Days gone by] (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. Search this book on
• Ivanilov, S. A. (2026). Gaudeamus (in русский). Khabarovsk: FESTU Publishing House. Search this book on

He is also the author of six teaching manuals, among them Dispatcher Centralisation, Automation of Train Safety Systems and Automation of Large Hump Yards, and of about thirty papers in Russian and foreign academic journals.

External links

• "Books by S. A. Ivanilov in the catalogue of the Far Eastern State Research Library" (in русский).
• Article in the Russian Wikipedia

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