27-08-2025
Mabiala Gilbert: I Was Lucky

How a student from Congo became a lecturer and a Veteran of Labour at Crimea’s leading university

By Elena Ozeryan

In early May, Russian President Vladimir Putin met at the Kremlin with the President of the Republic of the Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, who visited Moscow to take part in events dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. President Putin noted that Russia and Congo share friendly relations based on equality and mutual respect, and emphasised that strengthening ties with African countries is one of Russia’s foreign policy priorities. Russia and the Republic of the Congo already have a shared history, and one living example of this is Mabiala Gilbert, now a Crimean resident, Candidate of Sciences in Economics, and Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and the Department of Banking and Finance at the Institute of Economics and Management of V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University.

“The Vernadsky CFU Veteran of Labour certificate is awarded to those who have worked at the university for 25 years. That’s the minimum required. In fact, I’ve been working here, in Crimea, for over 30 years now,” Gilbert clarifies. He speaks fluent Russian, as well as French and English. “I came to the peninsula, as I now realise, thanks to a fortunate twist of fate. Since the early 1960s, there were very close ties between the USSR and African countries. And it’s wonderful that they’re being actively renewed today. Back then, Congolese citizens were granted quotas to study at Soviet universities. In 1988, as a young man from a large family, already enrolled at the University of Brazzaville – the capital and largest city of the country – I was granted such a quota. At that time, the Soviet Union granted 350 scholarships annually to Congolese students alone, not counting those from other African and Latin American countries.”

Now 63 years old, Mabiala Gilbert still remembers in vivid detail how they were received in Moscow, then in Tashkent, and in Crimea.

“The USSR had a powerful international education system, which worked with foreign citizens who came to study in the country,” says Mabiala Gilbert. “We arrived in Moscow on Thursday, 1 September, landing at Sheremetyevo Airport. We were met and taken to the National Hotel. And on Sunday evening at 8:30, our group of seven took a train to Uzbekistan, to the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation Engineers and Agricultural Mechanisation, for a pre-university course in Russian. I still remember the incredible emotions. Just imagine: one day you’re in Congo, the next – in Moscow, and three days later in Tashkent. We had travelled half the country – such a huge one and so different from mine. Everything was unfamiliar!” he laughs.

“We were met in Tashkent and taken straight to the 6th student hostel on Kary Niyazi Street. We submitted all the documents and underwent medical checks. On Monday, they took us to the institute’s administrative building, to the Faculty of Education, where foreign students studied, and the process began. I still remember the first time our Russian teacher, Tatiana Georgievna Levashova walked into the classroom. She is a wonderful person and teacher, I love her dearly. She still lives in Tashkent, and we still keep in touch on social media. Between September 1988 and July 1989, we stopped feeling like strangers: the atmosphere was so warm, even though of course we missed home.”

Gilbert remembers that learning Russian was a real challenge for many international students. But everyone studied with great enthusiasm, constantly asking their teachers questions and trying to learn more on their own. A community of about 30 senior African students and postgraduates helped the newcomers adjust during those first months.

“I found studying easy – maybe because I was already 25 when I came to study in the USSR, an adult, conscious person. Just a few months after arriving in Tashkent, we decided to go shopping on our own, without senior students. We’d visit the most famous bazaar in Tashkent – Alay Bazaar – and buy this large (he gestures) melons and watermelons! But I want to note that the society there wasn’t European or Asian – it was Soviet, and everyone was very kind. I remember how we greeted everyone with ‘as-salamu alaykum’ and replied ‘wa alaykum as-salam’. Many of us, including me, finished the Russian course with excellent grades. Our group was international too: two students from Angola, three from Nigeria, two from Congo, and two from Laos,” he recalls.

They were all meant to continue their studies at the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation Engineers and Agricultural Mechanisation. But things turned out differently.

“In early summer 1989, unrest broke out in Fergana between Uzbeks and Meskhetian Turks,” Gilbert recalls. “Foreigners weren’t affected, but apparently the administration decided it would be better to transfer us to other universities. We were given options: the Timiryazev Academy in Moscow, or agricultural institutes in Odessa, Kharkiv, and Crimea. Almost everyone in our group chose Odessa or Moscow, but I said – I want to go south.

Three of us came to Crimea – me and two girls from Madagascar. It was August 1989. We landed in Simferopol, took a taxi for 3 roubles – expensive back then!” he laughs heartily, “and arrived in the village of Agrarnoye, to the Crimean Order of the Badge of Honour Agricultural Institute named after M.I. Kalinin, as it was then called. They met us and brought us to the 5th student hostel, where all the international students lived then. The next day – it was Tuesday, I remember it clearly – we went to the International Students Dean’s Office. The Dean, Anatoly Petrovich Kazak, God rest his soul, welcomed us, assigned us a curator from the department: Larisa Nikolaevna, who still works there. She explained everything and helped us in every way. Classes began on 1 September, and we already felt like we were at home.”

Looking back with the perspective of a lecturer, Mabiala Gilbert notes the high academic standard of Soviet education and the Crimean agricultural institute in particular:

“For the entire first-year cohort of around 350 students – both Soviet and international – the lecture on Introduction to the Profession was delivered by the Dean of the Faculty of Economics. That’s when I realised the education and teaching at the institute were of a very high standard,” he says. “Right after that lecture I thought: Yes, I really am in the Soviet Union – the country I dreamed of back in Congo. I compared everything to the society I came from. And I decided to absorb all the knowledge and practical skills I could while I was here. I sat down… and started studying. In earnest. First of all, I wanted to master the Russian language – though that still hasn’t fully happened,” he laughs, “the native language stays inside and sometimes gets in the way.

Our Russian teacher was Nina Ivanovna Gracheva, who still lives in Agrarnoye. She’s one of the people who played a big role in shaping me as a person. Much of what I know about teaching and communicating with people – with students and colleagues – comes from her. I respect and love her very much,” he smiles.

Throughout our conversation, Mabiala Gilbert repeatedly says: “I was lucky with my teachers.” But he also really wanted to learn – even in senior years, he didn’t hesitate to attend lectures for first-year students to refresh his memory or ask questions. This earned him respect from teachers who were eager to help such a motivated student – especially one from a distant but friendly country.

“In 1993, I graduated with a Master’s in Economics. Again, I was lucky: I was given a seat in doctorate studies (aspirantura). I returned home and stayed there until March 1994, then I came back to Crimea, enrolled in a doctorate programme and graduated from it in 1995 – a year ahead of schedule. All our lecturers – whether they held degrees or not – invested a piece of themselves in us. Thanks to them, I became who I am. The Soviet system of education gave us everything it could.”

After his doctoral studies, Gilbert was supposed to return to Congo. But he had to wait for his Candidate of Sciences diploma, which he received in April 1996 in Kyiv.

“I returned to Crimea – with suitcases ready – but then war broke out in Congo. One of the foreign students told me. I didn’t believe it at first – I thought he misunderstood. But he said Brazzaville was mentioned in the news on TV. I immediately went to the central post office in Simferopol – there were no mobile phones or internet – and called my brother. He told me: ‘Something’s happening here, it’s not good. Better to stay where you are for now.’

June, July… summer was ending. I thought: maybe I should go study something else again? I asked my former thesis supervisor, Yuri Nikolayevich Novikov (God rest him). He said: ‘How old are you? Do you plan to be a student forever? Time to start earning money!’ I also spoke with another of my ‘academic fathers’, Professor Felix Vladimirovich Zinoviev, then Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Management. He also said: ‘Life is moving on – maybe it’s time to start working?’

I went home to talk to my wife. We had everything packed, ready to leave as soon as things stabilised in Congo.”

His wife, Valentina, is originally from Luhansk region. She is of Cossack descent. They met in Crimea and married in 1993, after he graduated from the agricultural institute. However, as Gilbert admits, if someone had told him back then that he would settle in Crimea, he wouldn’t have believed it.

“So back in 1998, did your wife also tell you it was time to find work?” I ask.

“It was a difficult, painful decision,” Gilbert recalls. “We had already travelled to my home country more than once, and she had a good impression of it. But then, as people say, a dark period began in my life. First, my father passed away. I still remember when we received the telegram: “Father is ill.” I immediately sent back: “What’s the diagnosis?” There are 12 of us in the family, I’m the seventh, and no one responded. I realised something bad had happened. I went to the rector, Mikhail Mikhailovich Melnikov, and told him I needed to go to Congo – my wife would stay, as we were living in the institute’s hostel.

I still remember the moment I walked into our family yard, usually filled with noise – my mother was sitting at the doorway, and it was dreadfully quiet. All my brothers and sisters had already moved away. I knew at once – my father was gone. A few days later, my brothers came from Brazzaville. I stayed for a while and then returned to Crimea. That was the last time I saw my mother,” he says, wiping away a tear. “In 1998, my sister called from France and said our mother had passed away. Even so, the next year I went back to Congo – I was drawn there. But when I entered our home, it was empty. And after one of my brothers – the one who had stayed in the family house – died, I realised I no longer had a home there.”

In 1996, Mabiala Gilbert got a job as an associate professor at the Department of Management at the Taurida Institute of Entrepreneurship and Law, the first private university in Simferopol. At that time, due to existing laws, foreign nationals couldn’t be hired by the agricultural institute where he studied.

Interestingly, several of his relatives also received higher education in the Soviet Union.

“My older brother graduated from the Moscow Institute of Geodesy and Cartography in 1985 and went back to work in Congo. A cousin – also an economist – studied at the Kyiv Economic University and returned home in 1992. My younger brother’s wife studied in Donetsk. One nephew graduated from the Luhansk Engineering Institute and returned to Congo, while another is still studying there. The education here is excellent. So I have very strong, long-standing ties with the USSR and Russia,” Gilbert explains.

Today, he often receives calls from compatriots in Congo seeking advice on studying in Russia and Crimea.

“Especially now, when Russia is actively developing cooperation with African countries,” says Gilbert. “In Congo, for example, we also hold the Immortal Regiment March on 9 May. Many such important events are organised at the highest level by the Russian Cultural Centre at the embassy. There’s even a choir there that sings the Russian national anthem so powerfully it gives you goosebumps. My compatriots and I regularly inform university administration here that there are young people keen to study in Russia. In fact, there are currently Congolese students studying at the Vernadsky CFU’s Taurida Academy and Medical Institute, and several are pursuing engineering in Sevastopol. Since I now work at the Department of Economics of Vernadsky CFU’s Institute of Economics and Management, as well as at the Department of Public Health and Healthcare Management of Vernadsky CFU’s Medical Institute, my colleagues and I have spent the past few years working on research topics related not only to the Russian healthcare system but also to global health. Over the past four years, we’ve written several textbooks and monographs in English, which are used in teaching international students studying in Crimea and throughout Russia.

My university friends, now living and working in different countries, are always happy to take part, sadly, only online for now, in our conferences and events. All of us who studied together at this university (Vernadsky CFU’s Agricultural Academy – ed.) – and we came from 110 countries: Congo, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Togo, Sudan, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Peru, Germany, Cuba, Lebanon, India, Syria, Palestine, and others – still keep in touch via social media, calls, and maintain friendly relations. Many have returned to visit Crimea and to see our university again.

We often recall those days – how we went with Soviet students to harvest vegetables and fruit in Crimean farms. I have lots of photos – we were young, cheerful, carefree. A few of us, like me, met our spouses here – we married local women and have been happy for many years. My warmest memories are of my pre-graduation work placement in the Bakhchisarai region. I remember arriving at the Pobeda collective farm in the village of Dolynne. They welcomed me warmly. The chief economist, Zhukovsky – a wonderful man – and his wife, who worked in the farm’s accounting office, taught me everything about the agricultural economy in three months. I’m deeply grateful to them for that.

But if someone had told me back then that one day I’d be a lecturer teaching their children in our university, I wouldn’t have believed it for a second,” he laughs. “Ah, you never know how life will turn out.”

“Did you ever want to leave Crimea, Russia, and go to some other country to work as a lecturer there? Especially back in those ‘turbulent ‘90s.’ With your experience and help from your university friends, it surely wouldn’t have been difficult.”

“I lived in Congo from birth until I was 25, then came to study in the USSR, and I’ve been living here for 34 years now. Yes, there were tough times – sometimes we were paid in food supplies – over there,” he says, pointing out the window to a place in the village of Agrarnoye. My wife worked here too. I don’t know how, but we endured all those hardships. For example, I understood that life in my homeland, Congo, was even harder, and in other countries, it was even worse. Thank God my loved ones supported me.

In 2003, it was tough again, many foreigners were leaving. After discussing it with my wife, I decided to first go to Saint Lawrence University in Canada to improve my qualification – they have a good faculty of agricultural economics. I applied, submitted my documents, and was accepted. I went to our rector, Mikhail Mikhailovich Melnikov, told him where I was going and promised to come back. I still remember the look he gave me,” he laughs. “I don’t know if he believed me or not. Everyone usually says Canada is paradise on earth! Alas… To be honest, from the first minute in Canada, I was disappointed. It was good I went alone at first, not with my wife. We decided that if everything went well, she would join me later. After studying for about a year, I called my wife and told her I’d probably be coming back. I told her about the values and mentality in Canada, and she said, “We couldn’t live like that; there aren’t Russians living there. When I told my Canadian supervisors this, they were very surprised because all the foreigners, who came to them, usually stayed,” he laughs.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why were you the exception?”

“What can I say? Everything there is not Russian! There really isn’t a Russian person living there! After returning to Crimea, I went to my alma mater, where many were surprised: ‘How come you came back from Canada?!’ But when I went to the Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, Vladimir Stepanovich Yarmola, and said, ‘I promised to return, and I did,’ he immediately said, ‘Come on, start working!’ And I immediately felt at home.”

The original version of this interview in Russian is available at

https://crimea.mk.ru/social/2025/06/01/kak-student-iz-kongo-stal-prepodavatelem-i-veteranom-truda-glavnogo-vuza-kryma.html