Tomsk, University of

(full name, V. V. Kuibyshev University of Tomsk), the oldest higher educational institution in Siberia and the Far East. The University of Tomsk was founded in 1880 and opened in 1888 as part of a faculty of medicine; in 1898 a faculty of law was added. In 1909 and 1910, V. V. Kuibyshev studied in the faculty of law.

During the years of Soviet power, the University of Tomsk has become an important teaching and research institution. Among the scholars who have been associated with the university are the academicians V. D. Kuznetsov, Iu. A. Kuznetsov, S. I. Karpov, and I. V. Toroptsev and the corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR P. N. Krylov, G. D. Suvorov, A. D. Zakrevskii, and A. K. Krasin. The medical and pedagogical institutes in Tomsk originated in the university.

As of 1976, the University of Tomsk comprised departments of physics, mechanics and mathematics, radio physics, applied mathematics, geology and geography, chemistry, biology and soil science, history, philology, law, and economics. There is also a physicotechnical department and a department for the advanced training of teachers in higher educational institutions. The university has graduate and correspondence divisions and a preparatory division for certain categories of entering students. The University of Tomsk is the home of the Siberian Physicotechnical Institute; in addition, it has a research institute for applied mathematics and mechanics, an institute for biology and biophysics, four special-purpose laboratories, and a computer center. The Siberian Botanical Garden and the V. V. Kuibyshev Museum also form part of the university, as do a herbarium and museums of mineralogy, zoology, paleontology, and archaeology and ethnography. The university library has 3 million volumes.

During the 1975–76 academic year, enrollment exceeded 8,000, and there were approximately 1,900 teachers and researchers, among them 71 professors and doctors of sciences and 450 docents and candidates of sciences. The journal Trudy (Transactions) has been published by the university since 1888. The V. V. Kuibyshev University of Tomsk was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1967.