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Novosibirsk is the third largest city of Russia (after Moscow and St.Petersburg) and the chief city of Western Siberia (see the map). Born in 1893 as a future site of a railroad bridge crossing the great Siberian river Ob where the latter is crossed by the famous Trans-Siberian Railroad (built in 1890s - 1900s), it officially became a town in 1903. After its foundation in 1893 and until 1926, Novosibirsk (pronounced no-vo-see-bEErsk) was called Novonikolayevsk. Even if you do not know Russian, it is not difficult to guess the meanings of the two names. The original name refers to Nicolas II (Nikolay II Alexandrovich Romanov), the last Emperor and Sovereign of Russia the Great, the Little and the White, the Grand Duke of Finland, the Tsar of Poland. In 1926, "by the demand of the people", it was renamed. All the names of the revolutioners have alread been taken, so that the name Novosibirsk ("New Siberia") naturally came up.One of the problems facing the Soviet Union in the 1950s was to achieve rapid development of productive forces in Siberia. The unprecendent scale of assimilation of Siberia's natural resources called for boosting basic research in the eastern parts of the country. It was the first time when a big center of science was created far from Moscow or Leningrad (also known as St.Petersburg). Many people both in Russia and abroad did not believe in this idea. But the will of the leadership of the Comunist Party could make anything possible at that time. Whole collectives of scientists moved from Moscow and Leningrad to Novosibirsk.

Nikita Sergeyevich Khryshchev, the leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, was the great catalyzer of political and social change. He broke both the fact and the tradition of the Stalin rule and established a basis for liberalizing tendencies in the Soviet Union. His experience with international realities confirmed him in his doctrine of peaceful coexistence with the non-Communist world. Under Khrushchev leadership, the idea of the world-wide Communist Revolution quietly died and has never been revived in the Soviet Union again. He publicly recognized the limitations as well as the power of nuclear weapons, and his decision to negotiate with the United States for nuclear-testing control was of vast importance. Khrushchev's empathy with the Soviet people resulted in concessions to a consumer economy and in general relaxation of security controls. He was doing his best to make Americans overestimate the Soviet Union's nuclear power. Once he was asked by one of the top military commanders,"We have ten times less nuclear warheads then the States, and don't make enough efforts to decrease the gap. Why?" Khrushchev replied,"Very simple. We are not going to make war on anybody, so it is not that important how many warheads we have. What is important is what they think about our nuclear might".

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