Leningrad Institute of Technology

(Lensovet Leningrad Institute of Technology), one of the oldest institutions of higher technical education in the USSR, founded in 1828 as the St. Petersburg Institute of Practical Technology and renamed an institute of higher technical education in 1862.

Students of what is now the Leningrad Institute of Technology were among the members of the Blagoev and Brusnev groups, the first social democratic organizations in Russia. V. I. Lenin joined the Marxist circle of the institute’s students in 1893, and members of this circle became his co-workers in organizing the St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. The meetings of the first St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies took place in the institute’s building in 1905, and it is for this reason that the name “Lensovet” was added to the institute’s title in 1924. Among the prominent scientists who have taught at the institute are D. I. Mendeleev, G. I. Gess, D. K. Chernov, I. A. Vyshnegradskii, A. E. Favorskii, S. V. Lebedev, V. Ia. Kurbatov, E. V. Alekseevskii, A. E. Porai-Koshits, F. F. Beil’shtein, P. P. Fedot’ev, N. P. Fedot’ev, D. P. Konovalov, L. A. Chugaev, N. L. Shchukin, B. V. Byzov, S. P. Vukolov, A. A. Iakovkin, K. F. Pavlov, A. A. Grinberg, and K. S. Evstrop’ev.

As of 1973, the institute had departments of chemistry, physical chemistry, mathematics and engineering, chemical-industrial engineering, physicochemical engineering, organic materials technology, inorganic materials and silicate technology, and engineering cybernetics. It has evening and advanced training departments, a preparatory division, and a graduate program. There were 68 subdepartments, a design bureau, an institute for scientific research, 12 special-problem laboratories, four sectorial laboratories, and one mixed laboratory. In 1973 there were approximately 560,000 volumes in the institute’s library.

During the 1972–73 academic year there were approximately 7,000 students studying at the institute. There were 2,400 teachers and scientific workers, including 80 professors and doctors of science and 360 docents and candidates of science.

The Leningrad Institute of Technology has the right to accept candidates’ and doctors’ dissertations for defense. It has published Trudy (Transactions) since 1934 and Kratkie soobshche-niia (News in Brief) since 1968. The institute has trained more than 37,000 engineers since it first opened, and it has played an important role in organizing a number of local research institutes and higher educational institutions. The Leningrad Institute of Technology was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1928.