NEW BUILDINGS OF MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000600390501-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 18, 2011
• Sequence Number: 501
• Publication Date: June 5, 1951
• Content Type: REPORT

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CLASSIFICATION SECRET SWEY
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS CD NO.
SUBJECT Sociological, - Education
Economic -? Construction
HOW
PUBLISHED !),Ali- newspaper
LANGUAGE
WHERE -
PUBLISHED Moscow
DATE
PUBLISHED 16 Jan 1951
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DATE OF
INFORMATION 1951
DATE DIST. S Flay 1951
NO. OF PAGES 4
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
i EW BUILDINGS OF MOSCOW STATE UNTVF.R$TTY
New buildings are at present being constructed ih the Lenin-
skiye Gori section of Moscow to house the Moscow. Order of Lenin
.State University -imeni M. Q. Z4npnoa6v, founded in 1755 by Tsar-
itsa Elizabeth and the poet-scientist Lomonosov0 It is the
largest university in the USSR, with an enrollment of about 10,000
students in its 11 faculties and 168 chairs..
The Moscow daily Vechernysya Moskva recently devoted more
than-one of its four pages to a group of articles on the new build- aF
ings written by several university officials. A -statement by A. N.
Npsmeyanov, rector of the university and new President of the
Academy of Sciences USSR, to the effect that the Chemistry Faculty
is planning to increase its "research in the field of rare ele-
ments and ..., the transformation of elements" may be interpreted
to mean that the university is expanding its atomic research pro-
gram. This and other articles are summarized below.
A 32-hectare agrobotanical garden for scientific research is to be planted
near the new building which will house the Biology and Soil Faculty. The gar-
den is to have an arboretum, a fruit and berry orchard, an alpinery with arti-
ficial mountains covered with alpine plants, a pond with a cascading water foun-
tain, flower and vegetable' gardens with 1,500 different types of medicinal and
edible plants, experimental hothouses equipped with laboratories, vegetable
-houses with rooms for growing plants under artificial temperatures varying from
plus 60.degrees to minus 70 degrees centigrade, a vivarium, and about 30 ponds
and tanks for fishes. Planning work on the garden is lagging,, however, which
may delay'spring planting and other work until autumn,
Professor Isayev is dean of the Biology and Soil Faculty.
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New university buildings will include 23 large auditoriums seating from
150 to 600 persons, 125 smaller auditoriums, about 900 laboratories, a 1.2-mil-
lion-volume library, an assembly hall seating 1,500 persons, a geography museum,
etc.
Each of the 6,000 student dormitory rooms will have a built-in clothes
closet, a metal bed (which may be converted into a diver), and a bookcase, desk,
and small dining table. In all, some 150,000 pieces of 200 different types of
furniture will be used,
Most of the laboratories will have standard cabinets one meter wide which
may be varied by adding shelves and drawers of various sizes to meet any need;
laboratory tables will have replaceable standard size bases.
The clock to be installed in the tower of the central building will be the
largest in ,the country, The 4-ton clock will be 9 meters in diameter, with an
hour hand 4 meters long and a minute hand over 5 meters long. Its mechanism is
being produced by the training and production workshop of the Moscow Institute
of Mechanics, A'system is being devised to illuminate the clock so that it will
be visible at any hour.
Six ,f the university's 17 faculties -- Biology and Soil, Geography,
Physics, Chemistry, Geology, and Mechanics and Mathematics -- are preparing to
move into the new buildings. All laboratories are to be equipped with the best
optical equipment, including electronic and ultraviolet microscopes. Since not
all of the new equipment can possibly be made by Soviet industry, certain special
equipment must be made by the university itself. For this reason it is necessary
to set up both a design bureau and an instrument-building workshop as soon as
possible. Engineers'and technical workers such as mechanics, glass blowers, etc.,
must be trained to maintain the university's laboratories and workshops. Another
important task is the training of highly qualified research workers, capable of
operating all types of scientific equipment.
The Biology and Soil Faculty is to have its own building. Laboratories of
the Chairs of Pls.nt Physiology and Animal Physiology will be equipped with the
most modern precision instruments for studying metabolism and cell structure and
protoplasm. Unique, high-speed centrifuges have been assigned for use in albu-
min-chemistry research. The laboratory of the Chair of Animal Physiology is to
be equipped with an expensive apparatus for experimentation in Pavlov physiology.
A large section of the building is to be set aside as a herbarium, and will
contain various thermal apparatus, artificial climate rooms (some of which will
be located in the agrobotanical garden), vivariums, etc., for experiments dealing
with the transformation of nature and the creation of new forms of plant and ani-
mal life on the basis of Michurin science.
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Geo ra her Faculty
The Museum of Geography will occupy the top six stories in the tower of
the central building, with the seven stories below housing the Geography Faculty.
This faculty will have 18 new laboratories, plus a meteorological station which
is to be set upon the grounds of the agrobotanical garden.
University Observatory
The observatory is to have a new building of its own, with a special ap-
paratus on the roof for catching the rays of the sun and for transmitting them
to a basement laboratory where workers will study the sun and the solar spectrum.
Among the complex apparatus to be installed .n the observatory is 'the Maksutov
refracting telescope, the largest in the USSR; the telescope will be used both
for observing and for photographing the heavens.
Physics Faculty
The Physics Faculty is to occupy one of the two large wings of the central
building. First-year physics students will learn methods of physical measure-
ment in a new, well-equipped laboratory.
There will be individual laboratory buildings for the new Chair o: Low Tem-
peratures, for research on electrical phenomena of high potentials and high fre-
quencies, and for the mechanics laboratories, which are equipped with aerodyna-
mic and hydraulic engineering apparatus and apparatus for research in the field
of the strength of metals.
Chemistry Faculty
The Chemistry Faculty is to occupy the other of the large wings attached
to the central building. In the new quarters, each chemistry student is to
have a work bench of his own. Research is planned on the kinetics of chemical
reactions in the field of electrical discharges with the aim of increasing
che:ical production and creating new chemical products, Ways of transforming
simple hydrocarbon raw materials into motor fuels with special properties and
into synthetic fibers and plastics will also be studied. The'chemistry of pro-
teins will be studied, broad research in the field of rare elements is planned,
and greater attention will be devoted to the transformation of elements. Stu-
dents are to participate in all of this work.
Special laboratories, to b shared by scientific workers of the various
faculties, are also being set up. Special laboratory equipment, no matter
where located, will be freely available to other faculties.
A NEW TYPE OF LIBRARY
A. Kudryavtseva, Director
Scientific Library imeni A.M. Gor'kiy
The university's new library is to have 1,200,000 volumes, 600,000 of which
will be shelved in stacks running through the middle of the tall central build-
ing. The .16 stories of stacks will be so arranged that those adjacent to par-
ticular faculties (Geology, Mechanics,and Mathematics, and Geography) will con-
1 tain books on those fields of science.
The rest of the books are to be kept in the various reading rooms, in
buildings housing the Chemistry, Physics,. and Biology and Soil faculties, and in
the observatory. In addition, the student dormitory is to have a 150,000-volume
library. There' are to be separate reading rooms for the use", of students, grad-
uate students, and professors; each reading room is to be equipped with a collec-
tion of basic reference,books and will be under the direction of a trained librar-
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Requests for books will be sent by pneumatic tube, In addition to the reg-
ular book elevator, there will be a continuous and automatic vertical conveyer
,or dropping books off at any stack level. Books will be delivf._ed between
buildings by automobile.
Responsibility for setting up the new library has been placed upon the
Scientific Library imeui Gor'kiy, Moscow's oldest library. Currently the lib-
rary is devoting particular attention to acquiring the private collections of
outstanding Soviet scientists; among the collections which have already been
procured are those of Academician Savarenskiy on geology, Professor Kuz'min,
Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences USSR,-on mathematics, Professor
Smorodintsev -n chemistry, and Professor. Shmidt on ichthyology.
Yu Yefremov
Acting Director, Geography Museum
The muse.:.,:, will occupy the top six stories in the tower of the central
building.. The top floor, immediately under the great spire with its red star,
will be a spacious hall 10 meters high containing sculptures of Marx, Engels,
Lenin, and Stalin. In the center of the hall there will be a model of the
university and a statue of Lomonosov. Each corner of the floor below will con-
tain a giant lone meter, 27 centimeters in diameter) globe of the geology, geog-
raphy, and hydrology of the earth. The lower floors will be devoted to dis-
plays of the plant and animal Life of the USSR, ~aiaterials on the history Of the
earth and life on our planet, on mineral and other resources, etc. Maps, dia-
grams, photographs, slides, films, models, dioramas, moulages, and exhibits are
to be used widely,.
Collection of materials for the museum was begun in 1950 by ten special
expeditions, Another 27 expeditions are to be sent out in 1951.
The complex architectural problem of the museum is being handled by the
Construction Administration of the Palaca of Soviets, and. the art work by the
Academy of Fine Arts USSR. Several hundred ..artists and cartographers are to
participate in the work of setting up the museum.
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