Novosibirsk State University was founded in May 1959 in the USSR by Soviet academicians Mikhail Alekseevich Lavrentiev, Sergei Lvovich Sobolev and Sergey Alekseyevich Khristianovich in a program of establishing a Siberian Division of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Novosibirsk State University is one of the most famous universities in Russia, although is somewhat young. The university is located 20 kilometers from the city of Novosibirsk, a cultural and industrial center of Siberia.