Akademgorodok - History

History

The town, whose name would translate to English as Academy Town, was founded in the 1950s by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Academician Mikhail Alexeyevich Lavrentyev, a physicist and mathematician, the first Chairman of the Siberian Division of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, played a prominent role in establishing Akademgorodok. At its peak, Akademgorodok was home to 65,000 scientists and their families, and was a privileged area to live in.

During the Soviet period (1961–1991), due to the peculiarity of the Soviet economic system, monetary rewards did not always translate into a higher standard of living. To offset this, a special compensation system was devised in Akademgorodok for its residents and leading scientists. For example, residents of Akademgorodok had access to special food ration distribution outlets (“stoly zakazov”) that provided, most of the time, an access to some basic subsidized foodstuffs, which were not always easily obtainable elsewhere. Scientists who had obtained a doctorate (a post-Ph.D. degree under the Russian system) were rewarded by the authorities with the special food delivery service ("doktorskiy zakaz”), which provided access to a wider selection of groceries than available to the general population; some of the scientists, despite being eligible, refused it on moral grounds. Full and corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences had access to still higher level of service ("akademicheskiy zakaz") and were eligible to live in cottages, considered luxurious by Soviet standards, as most of the population lived in apartments situated in nine- and four-story multi-apartment buildings.