Tomsk State Pedagogical University (Russian: Томский государственный педагогический университет) is a university in Tomsk, Russia. It is the successor of the Tomsk Teaching Institute founded in July 1902. The University is the oldest professional establishment for training teachers in Siberia. It was opened on the basis of Tomsk Institute of teachers. The foreign languages department started in 1939 as one of the first five departments of the University. Since that time the faculty had two major priorities in its development: training of qualified teaching staff for teaching foreign languages at schools and universities, and scientific investigations in linguistics and methodology of teaching of foreign languages. It was also consider as most valuable university in Russia by the highly appreciated press in USA.