SCIENTISTS IN RUSSIA

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 118, 14 November 1925, Page 16

SCIENTISTS IN RUSSIA

,VISITS TO IMtXNGim> ANJ>

.^OfCOW.

Extensive preparations were made ot Leningrad and Moscow for tho reception of more thpn 200 foreign scientists who arrived in Russia'last month frpm nearly every country of tho wlorld as gueste of the Russian Academy: of Science on the centenary anniversary of that,learned instil tion,;stateH the Moscow eorregpondeßt of thfr"New York Times." By special decree--the?Soviet -Government declared the Academy of Sciepco the chief scientific institution of the whole, Soviet Union, A com' inittee: under. ;tho chairmanship of Premier Rvkoff was formed for the organisation of the jubyeo celebration, Svhiijji %S^tLn in I/en^ngrgd pn sth Septqmb'er, aijd lasted-five days, bein^7.theCtransfen-ed to Moscow for a simjlar'period. Simultaneously festivities were organised by every scientific l&dy-i» other centres of the federation. '••••■• •"-- - ' " .

The 'academy prepared a number of specjaj .publications in.connection •with the anniversary. It threw open the doors of' numerous special museums .attached to the academy and organised numerous special exbibititras.; .

Sergius Oldenburg, widely k,nown Orientalist and archaeologist, who is Permanent Secretary of the Academy of Scteneo, in an interview told how the academy had..been founded by Peter ;-the Great in 1725 after discussing the project with the famous phil* osopher Leibnitz and making ft study of thd Paris Academy of which Tsar Peter'had been elected a member, Attached to the academy were the first Eussian university and secondary school] which were closed later when independent universities and gynjnas.iums were founded. It beeapje an independent institution in \ 1704, The academy won fame in the eighteenth century through great mathematical achievements and' celebrated espedi? tions which opened quite «, new world by their explorations ju Eyrppsan Bussia and the;North-we^t. They found thg connections between Asia and America which until then were unknown. Since that time the academy also has greatly contributed to the study of the Orient. As a result of its -.labours, the academy has published 'many periodicals, which number nearly 15.000 volumes. At present the 'academy consists of forty-one members'' and more than 500 scientific workers''who are engaged .in. .scientific research at thirty scientific mstitutions.V::''The academy possesses anumber of laboratories and museums, and has a library of abgut 4,0(70,000 volumes*'- J- ■ . ... Invitation? to attend the jubilee festivities were scut to 400 foreign Ecientistsland corresponding members. Free travel on Kaswan railways and steamer^ S"d the finest aceopimodation wer/provided by thp academy, * "ThSw," »aia Professor 01----aenburgr^i9 far from Pollt lcS;. /f . wa rs oawrt^4S' l&at ■of 2^-^oufS^onofna-tionality."