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Saint Petersburg State University
Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет
Motto:	Hic tuta perennat (Here we stay in peace)
Established	1724 (1819)
Type:	University/Liberal Arts
Rector:	Lyudmila Verbitskaya
Location	Saint Petersburg, Russia
Campus:	two campuses
Website:	www.spbu.ru

Saint Petersburg State University (Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is one of the oldest educational institutions in Russia, situated in the city of Saint Petersburg. At various times prior to 1924, it has also been known as Petersburg University, Petrograd University, and the University of St. Petersburg. From 1924-1948, and again from 1989-1991, the university was called Leningrad State University, and from October 22, 1948 to January 13, 1989 it was called A. A. Zhdanov Leningrad State University. ^[1][2]

The university was established on January 24, 1724. It is disputed whether the St. Petersburg State University or the Moscow State University is the oldest higher education institution in Russia. While the latter was established in 1755, the former, which has been in continuous operation since 1819, claims to be the successor of the university established on January 24, 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great together with the Academic Gymnasium and Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

In the period between 1803 and 1819, the University officially did not exist; the institution founded by Peter the Great - Saint Petersburg Academy - had already been disbanded, whereas the institution that was later used as the basis for Saint Petersburg University was still known as the Main Pedagogical Institute (Главный Педагогический Институт). Since there is some degree of continuity between the Academy, the Pedagogical Institute, and the University, Saint Petersburg State University may be considered the oldest university in Russia.

St Petersburg University occupies a group of early 18th-century buildings on the Neva embankment of Vasilievsky Island.

Like other universities in the Soviet Union, its faculty were purged during various political and ethnic campaigns of the leadership, beginning with the Russian Revolution and continuing through the era of the Great Purge with the killing of Deans of the various faculties, many of them non-Russians who had risen after the revolution, and then the "cosmopolitan" quota purges against Jews in the 1950s.

The university was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1944 and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1969.^[3]

As of 2004, the university has a teaching staff of 4,055, and counts seven Nobel Prize winners among its graduates.

SPbSU is made up of 19 specialized faculties (departments), which are:

• the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Control Processes
• the Faculty of Biology and Soil Studies
• the Faculty of Chemistry
• the Faculty of Economics
• the Faculty of Geography and Geoecology
• the Faculty of Geology
• the Faculty of History
• the Faculty of International Relations
• the Faculty of Journalism
• the Faculty of Law
• the Faculty of Management
• the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics
• the Faculty of Medicine
• the Faculty of Oriental Studies
• the Faculty of Philology and Arts
• the Faculty of Philosophy and Political Science
• the Faculty of Physics
• the Faculty of Psychology
• the Faculty of Sociology

There is also a Faculty of Military Studies and a Chair of Physical Culture and Sports.

Main article: List of Saint Petersburg State University people

Saint Petersburg State University has produced a number of Nobel Prize winners. Vladimir Putin, the current President of Russia is also an alumni of this university.

• List of universities in Russia
• Education in Russia
• Smolny College

• University of Greifswald, Germany
• Ching Yun University, Taiwan

1. ^ (Russian) Timeline 1946-1949
2. ^ (Russian) Timeline 1985-1989
3. ^ Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd edition, entry on "Ленинградский университет", available online here

The history of the university, with a particular focus on the Law Faculty, from the 19th century to the perestroika period, is documented in English in David Lempert, Daily Life in a Crumbling Empire: The Absorption of Russia into the World Economy, Book 2, Eastern European Monograph Series, Columbia University Press, 1996.

• Faculty of International Relations - in Russian and English
• University Homepage
• School of Management, Saint Petersburg State University
• Economic Faculty - in Russian