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 branch 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. The total number of students in the year 1999 was 5200. Three fellow members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Lavrentiev, Sobolev, and Khristianovich, decided to bring international level research over the Urals from Moscow to the vast territories of Siberia. Siberia possessed copious natural resources, but lacked large research institutions which would promote economic development and growth in the region. The idea was implemented with the establishment of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1958 near the large industrial city of Novosibirsk.