Akademgorodok ( rus, Академгородок, p=ɐkəˌdʲemɡərɐˈdok, "Academic Town") is a part of the Sovetsky District of the city of Novosibirsk, Russia, located south of the city center and about west of Koltsovo. It is the educational and scientific centre of

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

. It is surrounded by a birch and pine forest on the shore of the Ob Sea, an artificial reservoir on the river Ob. Formally it is a part of Novosibirsk city, and has never been a

closed city A closed city or closed town is a settlement where travel or residency restrictions are applied so that specific authorization is required to visit or remain overnight. Such places may be sensitive military establishments or secret research ins ...

. Located within Akademgorodok is

Novosibirsk State University Novosibirsk State University is a public research university located in Novosibirsk, Russia. The university was founded in 1958, on the principles of integration of education and science, early involvement of students with research activities an ...

, 35 research institutes, a medical academy, apartment buildings and houses, and a variety of community amenities including stores, hotels, hospitals, restaurants and cafes, cinemas, clubs and libraries. The House of Scientists (russian: label=none, Дом учёных, Dom Uchyonykh), a social center of Akademgorodok, hosts a library containing 100 thousand volumesRussian classics, modern literature and also many American, British, French, German, Polish books and magazines. The House of Scientists also includes a picture gallery, lecture halls and a concert hall.

History

The town was founded in 1957 under the auspices of the

Academy of Sciences An academy of sciences is a type of learned society or academy (as special scientific institution) dedicated to sciences that may or may not be state funded. Some state funded academies are tuned into national or royal (in case of the Unit ...

of the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. Academician Mikhail Alexeyevich Lavrentyev, a

mechanician A mechanician is an engineer or a scientist working in the field of mechanics, or in a related or sub-field: engineering or computational mechanics, applied mechanics, geomechanics, biomechanics, and mechanics of materials. Names other than mecha ...

and mathematician, the first Chairman of the Siberian Branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, played a prominent role in establishing Akademgorodok. At its peak, Akademgorodok was home to 65,000 scientists and their families, and was a privileged area to live in. During the Soviet period (1961–1991), due to the peculiarity of the Soviet economic system, monetary rewards did not always translate into a higher standard of living. To offset this, a special compensation system was devised in Akademgorodok for its residents and leading scientists. For example, residents of Akademgorodok had access to special food ration distribution outlets (') that provided, most of the time, an access to some basic subsidized foodstuffs, which were not always easily obtainable elsewhere. Scientists who had obtained a doctorate (a post-Ph.D. degree under the Russian system) were rewarded by the authorities with the special food delivery service ('), which provided access to a wider selection of groceries than available to the general population; some of the scientists, despite being eligible, refused it on moral grounds. Full and corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences had access to still higher level of service (') and were eligible to live in single-family residences (called "cottages"), considered luxurious by Soviet standards, as most of the population lived in apartments in nine- and four-story multi-apartment buildings. During the early years residents enjoyed great freedom from the rules and restraints of the Soviet Union, with a modernist cultural centre exhibiting works by banned Soviet artists, risqué poetry evenings, and other activities allowed nowhere else. Scientific research in areas dismissed as dangerous pseudoscience in Moscow, such as cybernetics and genetics, flourished. However, freedoms were severely curtailed in the 1970s during the

Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 and 198 ...

era.

Akademgorodok in the post-Soviet era

The collapse of the Soviet Union saw many scientists, including whole cadres of Russia's top minds in the physical and theoretical sciences, reduced to

penury Extreme poverty, deep poverty, abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury, is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, includ ...

. Beginning in the mid-1990s, as economic reforms allowed private investment in Russia, Akademgorodok saw the beginnings of venture funding. In 1992, a software company called Novosoft was founded here, and its chief client was IBM. Around this time CFT started, which specializes in banking and financial software. By 1997, private investment reached

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

10 million; by 2006, it was $150 million, reaching about $1 billion by 2015.

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

and Schlumberger have brought work to Akademgorodok, and other companies are following them into the area. Many scientists, including Lavrentyev's son, also named Mikhail and also an accomplished mathematician in his own right, were deeply involved in this renaissance. Currently its population stands at over 100,000 and there are over 40 research institutes located within Akademgorodok. While still minuscule by the standards of other countries, the private venture effort in Akademgorodok has breathed new life into what was once one of the Soviet Union's premier scientific centers. , 300 companies had been set up since 2011, employing about 9,000 people and generating 17bn roubles (£175M) annually. The area is sometimes called "Silicon Forest". A much larger technology center in the former Soviet Union is the

Skolkovo Innovation Center The Skolkovo Innovation Center is a high technology business area at Mozhaysky District in Moscow, Russia. Although historically Russia has been successful with development of science and technology, its lack of entrepreneurial spirit led to g ...

, conveniently located on the outskirts of Moscow, a $4bn state project with annual revenues of $1bn.

List of research and education facilities in Akademgorodok

* Kutateladze Institute of

Thermal Physics Thermal physics is the combined study of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and kinetic theory of gases. This umbrella-subject is typically designed for physics students and functions to provide a general introduction to each of three core hea ...

Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry

Boreskov Institute of Catalysis
* Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics
Ershov Institute of Informatics Systems

Institute of Informatics and Mathematical Geophysics

*

Institute of Cytology and Genetics Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (russian: Институт цитологии и генетики СО РАН) is a research institute based in Novosibirsk, Russia. It was founded in 19 ...

Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology
*

Sobolev Institute of Mathematics The Sobolev Institute of Mathematics (SIM) was founded in 1957 by Sergey Sobolev. It is located in Akademgorodok and it constitutes part of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Sergey S. Goncharov is the director. The institute ...

United Institute of Geology, Geophysics and Mineralogy
* Institute of Automation and Electrometry
Institute of Semiconductors Physics

Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
* Institute of

Chemical Kinetics Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is to be contrasted with chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in ...

and Combustion * Lavrentyev Institute of Hydrodynamics * Institute of History of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences

* Institute of

Philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

* Institute of Philosophy and

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

* Institute of

Laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fi ...

Physics
Central Siberian Botanical Garden

Central Siberian Botanical Garden
* Institute of Solid State Chemistry and Mechanochemistry * Research Institute of Circulation

Pathology Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...

* Institute of

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

and Industrial

Engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

Presidium of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences

House of Scientists
*

Specialized Educational Scientific Center on Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry and Biology of Novosibirsk State University
* Museum of Archæology and Ethnography * Central Siberian

Geological Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other E ...

Museum
Institute of Computational Technologies
The QSI International School of Novosibirsk, previously located in Akademgorodok, opened in 2008.

Sightseeing

The Technopark (Academpark) has a distinctive headquarters, constructed in 2013. It has two inclined towers connected by an overhead passage on the 13-14th floor level. Its unique form is the source of its nickname, "the geese".

References

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

s of Academgorodok - forum, photos * Dispatches - Silicon Siberia Fortune April 2, 2007 pp 33–36 {{Authority control Science and technology in Siberia Science and technology in the Soviet Union Naukograds Sovetsky District, Novosibirsk Cultural heritage monuments of regional significance in Novosibirsk Oblast

History

Akademgorodok in the post-Soviet era

List of research and education facilities in Akademgorodok

Sightseeing

See also

References

Further reading

External links