Leningrad Institute of Mines

full name, G. V Plekhanov Leningrad Institute of Mines), the oldest technical institution of higher learning in the USSR. It was founded in 1773 in St. Petersburg as the Mining School and enjoyed a status similar to that of an academy. In 1804 it became the Military School of Mines; in 1833, the Institute of the Corps of Mining Engineers; and in 1866, the Institute of Mines. The Mineralogical Society was founded at the institute in 1817. The publication of one of the oldest scientific-technical journals in the USSR, Gornyi zhurnal, was begun in 1825. In 1849 the Main Physics Observatory was created. The Institute of Crystallography was organized in 1920 at the Institute of Mines. During the 1920’s and 1930’s affiliated scientific research institutes of aluminum and magnesium, the mechanical treatment of minerals, mine surveying, prospecting techniques, geology, and exploration geophysics, among others, were organized. In 1956 the name of G. V. Plekhanov was bestowed on the Leningrad Institute of Mines.

Among those who studied at the institute were G. V. Plekhanov, G. I. Bokii, A. P. German, I. M. Gubkin, P. V. Eremeev, A. N. Zavaritskii, A. P. Karpinskii, N. I. Koksharov, D. P. Konovalov, N. S. Kurnakov, V. A. Obruchev, M. A. Pavlov, A. A. Skochinskii, S. S. Smirnov, A. M. Terpigorev, F. N. Chernyshev, I. M. Bakhurin, Iu. A. Zhemchuzhnikov, N. G. Kell’, V. N. Lipin, V. A. Nikolaev, N. I. Stepanov, V. I. Bauman, B. I. Bokii, and I. A. Time. The prominent metallurgist P. P. Anosov was also educated at the institute.

The institute (1973) comprises the departments of geological exploration, geophysics, mine surveying, mine construction, mining, electromechanical mining, metallurgy, and engineering economics, as well as an evening department and a correspondence school. The institute has a branch in Vorkuta, evening departments in Kirovsk and Monchegorsk, an interuniversity correspondence division in Vorkuta, and a general technical department in the city of Slantsy. The institute also has a graduate school, 53 subdepartments, 11 scientific research laboratories and laboratories for solving important problems, and a mining museum (founded in 1773). The school’s library totals 1,300,000 volumes. The institute has the right to accept for defense doctoral and candidate’s dissertations.

In the 1972–73 academic year there were approximately 11,-000 students; the teaching staff numbered about 600, including two academicians, 62 professors and doctors of sciences, and approximately 300 docents and candidates of sciences.The institute’s Zapiski are published (since 1907) in three series: the geology, the metallurgy, and the mining series. Over the years of Soviet power the institute has trained 23,000 specialists. It has been awarded the Order of Lenin (1944) and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1943).

The school’s building, built in 1806 by the architect A. N. Voronikhin, is one of the best examples of Russian classicism.