Moscow - Science and Education

Science and Education

There are 1696 high schools in Moscow, as well as 91 colleges. Besides these, there are 222 institutions of higher education, including 60 state universities and the Lomonosov Moscow State University, which was founded in 1755. The main university building located in Vorobyovy Gory (Sparrow Hills) is 240 metres (790 ft) tall and when completed, was the tallest building on the continent. The university has over 30,000 undergraduate and 7,000 postgraduate students, who have a choice of twenty-nine faculties and 450 departments for study. Additionally, approximately 10,000 high school students take courses at the university, while over two thousand researchers work. The Moscow State University library contains over nine million books, making it one of the largest libraries in all of Russia. Its acclaim throughout the international academic community has meant that over 11,000 international students have graduated from the university, with many coming to Moscow to learn the Russian language.

The Russian National Research Medical University named after N.I. Pirogov or formerly known as Russian State Medical University (RSMU) is a medical university situated in Moscow, Russia. It is a Russian Federal Agency for Health and Social Development.The university was awarded a National Research University status by the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia in July 2011 due to its excellence in academic and research. It is one of the largest medical universities in Russia and Europe. Currently, more than 9200 students are enrolling in 115 different academic departments in this university. It also offers courses for post-graduate studies.

Moscow is one of the main financial centers of the Russian Federation and CIS countries and is well known for its business schools. Among the best are the Finance Academy under the Government of RF; Plekhanov Russian Economic University; The State University of Management, and the State University - Higher School of Economics. They offer undegraduate degrees in management, finance, accounting, marketing, real estate and economic theory, as well as Masters programs and MBA with varied concentrations. Most of them have branches in other regions of Russia and countries around the world.

Bauman Moscow State Technical University, founded in 1830, is located in the center of Moscow and provides more than 18,000 undergraduate and 1,000 postgraduate students with an education in science and engineering, offering a wide range of technical degrees. Since it opened enrollment to students from outside of Russia in 1991, Bauman Moscow State Technical University has increased its number of international students up to two hundred.

The Moscow Conservatory, founded in 1866 is a prominent music school in Russia, whose graduates included Sergey Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin, Aram Khachaturian, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Alfred Schnittke.

The Gerasimov All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography, abbreviated as VGIK, is the world's oldest educational institution in Cinematography, founded by Vladimir Gardin in 1919. Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Aleksey Batalov were among its most distinguished professors and Mikhail Vartanov, Sergei Parajanov, Andrei Tarkovsky, Nikita Mikhalkov, Eldar Ryazanov, Alexander Sokurov, Yuriy Norshteyn, Aleksandr Petrov, Vasily Shukshin, Konrad Wolf among graduates.

Moscow State Institute of International Relations, founded in 1944, remains Russia's best- known school of international relations and diplomacy, with six different schools focused on international relations. Approximately 4,500 students make up the university's student body and over 700,000 Russian and foreign-language books — of which 20,000 are considered rare — can be found in the library of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

Other prominent institutions are the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, also known as Phystech, Moscow Aviation Institute, the Moscow Motorway Institute (State Technical University), and the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology has taught numerous Nobel Prize winners, including Pyotr Kapitsa, Nikolay Semyonov, Lev Landau and Alexander Prokhorov, while the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute is known for its research in nuclear physics. The highest Russian military school is the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

Although Moscow has a number of famous Soviet-era higher educational institutions, most of which are more oriented towards engineering or the fundamental sciences, in recent years Moscow has seen a significant growth in the number of commercial and private institutions that offer classes in business and management. Many state institutions have expanded their education scope and introduced new courses or departments. Institutions in Moscow, as well as the rest of post-Soviet Russia, have begun to offer new international certificates and postgraduate degrees, including the Master of Business Administration. Student exchange programs with different (especially, European) countries have also become widespread in Moscow's universities, while many schools within the Russian capital also offer seminars, lectures and courses for corporate employees and businessmen.

Moscow is one of the largest science centers in Russia. The headquarters of the Russian Academy of Sciences are located in Moscow as well as numerous research and applied science institutions. The Kurchatov Institute, Russia's leading research and development institution in the fields of nuclear energy, where the first nuclear reactor in Europe was built, the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems and Steklov Institute of Mathematics are all situated in Moscow.

There are 452 libraries in the city, including 168 for children. The Russian State Library, founded in 1862 is the national library of Russia. This library is home to over 275 kilometers of shelves and 42 million items, including over 17 million books and serial volumes, 13 million journals, 350,000 music scores and sound records, and 150,000 maps, making it the largest library in Russia and one of the largest in the world. Items in 247 different languages comprise approximately 29 percent of the collection.

The State Public Historical Library, founded in 1863, is the largest library specialising in Russian history. Its collection contains four million items in 112 languages (including 47 languages of the former USSR), mostly on Russian and world history, heraldry, numismatics, and the history of science.

In regards to primary and secondary education, Clifford J. Levy of The New York Times said "Moscow has some strong public schools, but the system as a whole is dispiriting, in part because it is being corroded by the corruption that is a post-Soviet scourge. Parents often pay bribes to get their children admitted to better public schools. There are additional payoffs for good grades."