Moscow State University Russia

Lomonosov Moscow State University Since its establishment in 1755, Lomonosov Moscow University is a Russia's leading academic and cultural centers. It is the largest of the classical research universities within the former USSR. The University has 5,000 academic staff and 4,500 researchers, over 40,000 students, including 5,000 international students from almost 100 countries. 10,000 schoolchildren are attending various introductory groups organized by the University. In 2008 Lomonosov Moscow State University the first time in Russia was granted the freedom to follow own academic standards and award own degrees. The University is well-known for its strong natural sciences tradition: 11 (of Russian 18) Nobel Prize winners and 6 (of Russian 8) Fields medalists were alumni or academics at Lomonosov. The 39 faculties cover virtually all areas of research, except engineering. The University has its two campuses in the center of Moscow where there are 4 museums, 15 research institutes, one of the two botanical gardens, Science Park and a number of service units. The library of the University holds over 9 million volumes. The University has 6 branches in Russia and five of the former USSR republics.

The establishment of the university was at the initiative of Ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonosov. Russian Empress Elizabeth decreed its creation on January 25,1755. The first lectures were held on April 26. January 25 is still celebrated as Students' Day in Russia.

St. Petersburg State University and Moscow State University have a friendly argument about which is actually Russia's oldest. While Moscow State University was established in 1755, its St. Petersburg competitor has been in continuous operation as a "university" since 1819, and claims to be the successor of the university established on January 24, 1724, by a decree of Peter the Great.

Originally located in the Principal Medicine Store on Red Square, the university was transferred by Catherine the Great to a Neoclassical building on the other side of Mokhovaya Street. This main building was constructed between 1782 and 1793 in the Neo-Palladian style, designed by Matvei Kazakov, and rebuilt after the 1812 Fire of Moscow by Domenico Giliardi.

In the 18th century, the university had three departments: philosophy, medicine, and law. A preparatory college was affiliated with the university before it was abolished in 1812. In 1779, Mikhail Kheraskov founded a boarding school for noblemen (Благородный пансион), which was transformed into a gymnasium for the Russian nobility in 1830. The university press, run by Nikolay Novikov in the 1780s, published the most popular newspaper in Imperial Russia — Moskovskie Vedomosti.

The roots of student unrest reach deep into the 1800s. In 1905, a social-democratic organization was created at the university calling for the tsar to be overthrown and for Russia to be turned into a republic. The Tsarist government repeatedly threatened to close the university. In 1911, in a protest over the introduction of troops onto the campus and mistreatment of certain professors, 130 scientists and professors resigned en masse, including prominent figures such as Nikolay Dimitrievich Zelinskiy, Pyotr Nikolaevich Lebedev, and Sergei Alekseevich Chaplygin. Thousands of students were also expelled.

After the October Revolution in 1917, the school began admitting proletariat and peasant children. In 1919, tuition fees were abolished, and a preparatory facility was established to help working class children prepare for entrance exams. During the implementation of Joseph Stalin's First Five-Year Plan (1928–1932), parts of the university were constructed by prisoners of the Gulag. As stated above, the intelligensia would later be ironically mocked, repressed, and imprisoned by Stalin.

On September 6, 1997, the entire front of the university was used as the backdrop for a concert by French electronic musician Jean Michel Jarre, who had been specially invited to perform there by the mayor of the city. The entire front of the building was used as a giant projection screen, while fireworks, lasers, and searchlights were all launched from various points around the building. The stage was directly in front of the building, and the concert, titled "The Road To The 21st Century" in Russia, but renamed "Oxygen In Moscow" for worldwide video/DVD release, attracted a world record crowd of 3.5 million people.