Chirchiq Higher Tank Command and Engineering School

The school traces its origins to the creation of the Nizhny Novgorod Infantry Courses of the Red Army command staff on 16 November 1918 during the Russian Civil War. The courses were taught in the building of the city's former eparchial school. Among the first cadets were workers from the city's Krasnoye Sormovo Factory. The faculty were taken from experienced former Imperial Russian Army officers, known as Military specialists. Ippolit Zhilinsky taught tactics, B.N. Moravsky engineering, and K.I. Bussov shooting. The first head of the courses was former Colonel A.I. Goryachev, and the first head of training was Nikolay Pukhov. During the summer of 1919, the first group of cadets graduated and were sent into combat on the Southern Front. In 1921, the courses became the 11th Nizhny Novgorod Infantry School[1] and the training period at the school expanded to three years.[2]

On 15 March 1932, the school was renamed the Nizhny Novgorod Tank School named for I.V. Stalin, and began training tank commanders for the Red Army's new armored forces. The 1st Tank Battalion, a training unit, was formed at the school, commanded by Makar Teryokhin. It became the Gorky Tank School that year when the city was renamed. In the fall of 1934 the first class of tank commanders graduated; they included Georgy Skleznyov, who was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union for his actions in the Spanish Civil War, and future Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergey Sokolov. In March 1938 it was relocated to Kharkov and renamed the Kharkov Tank School named for I.V. Stalin. The school was subsequently renamed the 1st Kharkov Tank School named for I.V. Stalin after a second tank school was established in Kharkov.[2]

Following the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, on 22 June 1941, 252 lieutenants graduated from the school and immediately sent to the front. In July, a consolidated cadet shock tank battalion under the command of a Major Grishin was formed from a selection of the remaining cadets and commanders, equipped with new T-34 and KV tanks fresh from factories in Kharkov, and sent to the front within three days. In September, as the front line approached Kharkov, the entire group of cadets and instructors from the school took up defensive positions at the stanitsa of Buryn and the khutor of Mikhailovsky, fighting alongside the Kharkov Infantry School. On 22 September the school was evacuated to Chirchiq, where it was renamed the Tashkent Tank School. Two months later, it graduated another class of tank commanders. During the war, the school's training period was accelerated. In 1943, for "outstanding services in training command cadres", the school was awarded the Order of Lenin. During World War II, the school graduated more than 7,000 tank commanders. For their actions, 74 graduates of the school became Heroes of the Soviet Union during the war.[2]

The school began transitioning back to a two-year period of study in 1946, and from 1949 had a three-year training period. In December 1961, as part of De-Stalinization, the school's honorific "named for I.V. Stalin" was replaced by "named for P.S. Rybalko" in honor of Soviet armor commander Pavel Rybalko. In April 1966, its training period was extended to four years, and the school was renamed the Tashkent Higher Tank Command School. Graduates now received a higher education diploma and a civilian engineer specialty.[2] In 1993, following the independence of Uzbekistan, the school was renamed the Chirchiq Higher Tank Command and Engineering School.[3] From 1997, the school trained tank platoon commanders in the operation and repair of armored vehicles and equipment, airborne platoon commanders in the operation and repair of armored and motor vehicles, and tactical short-range anti-aircraft systems commanders in radio engineering, as well as engineers for the operation and repair of armored vehicles and equipment, and political officers in social sciences.[4][5]