The second Internship tour of the Elevator to the Future program of the Sistema Charitable Foundation has ended in St. Petersburg. From October 26 to October 30, 40 university and college students from 16 regions of the country visited the production sites and offices of the region's leading companies, got acquainted with business processes and the work of specialists from the inside. The partners of the tour were the Etalon Group, MTS, Concept Group, Robotics Corporation, Imperium, Cosmos Hotel Group and Ozon Tech.
Internship tours have become a new format for students to interact with industries within the framework of the Elevator to the Future program. Unlike an internship in a single company, such a tour allows participants to get to know companies from various industries in detail in a few days in order to make a more informed choice of their career path. For students, this is an opportunity to establish direct contact with potential employers during their studies and plan the next step – an internship and employment.
"Today, young people are choosing not just an employer, but an environment in which they can grow up, people they want to learn from, and tasks they see sense in solving. The internship tour in St. Petersburg allowed talented students from all over the country to get acquainted with the work of MTS, Etalon Group, Ozon, Robotics Corporation, Cosmos Hotel Group, Emperium, Concept Group - and to see the variety of professional opportunities offered by AFK Sistema," said Larisa Pastukhova, Vice President- President of Personnel Management at AFK Sistema.
The tour program included both work in specialized areas - engineering, technical, creative and service, as well as general practices. For example, at Ozon Tech, the tour participants got acquainted with the techniques of managing complex projects in conditions of uncertainty and underwent a psychological workshop.
The participants of the engineering and technical direction visited the construction sites of the Mariinka Deluxe residential Complex and the LDM residential Complex of the Etalon Group and, at a lecture on BIM technologies, learned why digital design has become the industry standard and why the market especially values specialists combining engineering and digital competencies. The meeting at MTS with the head of the emergency prevention group providing communications in Antarctica showed the scale of responsibility of communications engineers. At the Robotics Corporation, students went through the entire product creation cycle, starting with the design bureau and software development and ending with assembly, welding and painting. Such an immersion gives an idea of how cooperation is built in the high-tech industry and what competencies are in demand in it. At the Emperium production facility, the participants followed how design solutions go from development to finished products, and saw how the company's design and production divisions interact.
The participants of the Creative Industries, Service and Logistics direction in the Concept Group traced the path of textiles from the sketch to the shelf of the Acoola store, got acquainted with the fashion industry as a complex industry combining design, technology, production, logistics and sales, and also passed a master class on industrial customization. A meeting with the architects of the Etalon Group and a visit to the Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts of the Stieglitz St. Petersburg State University of Fine Arts made it possible to correlate modern architectural practice with the artistic tradition of the St. Petersburg school. At Cosmos Hotel Group, students got to know in detail the business practices of the Cosmos Selection Saint Petersburg Nevsky Royal Hotel and Cosmos Saint Petersburg Pribaltiyskaya Hotel, and at workshops and seminars they learned about the standards of service underlying the hotel business. Representatives of the manufacturer of electric vessels "Imperium", using the example of their company, showed how they work with design and visual communications in the industry.
For partner companies, the internship tour became an opportunity to get to know future specialists in advance and show them the prospects of working in their industries.
"Career guidance today cannot be based solely on stories about professions – it is important for young people to see how real work works and what competencies are in demand in the market. That's why we develop programs together with employers: partner companies invest their experts' time in the project, open production facilities and share practical experience. Such a partnership is beneficial to both sides: students get an understandable career trajectory, and businesses get young professionals who come to the industry consciously," said Olga Yurkova, President of the Sistema Charitable Foundation.
"The format of internship tours provides a good immersion into the profession for a more informed career choice in the future. It is important for students to rely not on their own ideas about the profession, but on real experience of interacting with companies: to assess the scale, processes, and get carried away with the idea. During the tour, we show them how the theoretical knowledge gained in the audience is transformed into real engineering solutions and in-demand products. This is a valuable opportunity to meet talented young people and form a talent pool for the development of the robotics industry," said Alexander Alekseev, CEO of Robotics Corporation.
"We were able to look behind the scenes of companies and see with our own eyes how everything works from the inside, and find out which processes are hidden from the average consumer. Every meeting and every conversation with experts was important and instructive. We will take many of the words we have heard with us as a career compass. Thank you to the organizers for this experience and new horizons!" – Alexandra Getmanets, Valeria Ivanova, Anastasia Vokina, participants of the Internship tour of the Sistema Foundation in Creative Industries, Service and Logistics
"For me, the tour was a useful experience for my specialty and for understanding how different engineering fields work in Russia. The most valuable was the Photomechanics plant, which deals with automation, which is my specialty. It was very helpful to talk to people who graduated from the same or a related field and hear that it was a very interesting job. I also remember the shipyard where electric vessels are built: we were shown the production inside and out, we went inside and looked at how everything was arranged," Alexey Bystrov, participant of the Internship tour of the Sistema Foundation in engineering and technology, winner of the Elevator to the Future competition, scholarship holder in 2026,
About internship tours of the Sistema Foundation
Internship tours are a new format of the "First Internship" project of the Elevator to the Future program of the Sistema Charitable Foundation. The first round was held in Moscow in July 2026. 60 students from 47 universities and colleges in 28 regions of Russia took part in it. The program includes work at the sites of the foundation's industrial partners, career guidance trainings and master classes. Participants visit the Foundation's partner companies, get acquainted with the production and work of the teams, and replenish their digital profiles on the Elevator to the Future platform.
