Exhibition Halls\Kazan University Museum of History - Kazan (Volga region) Federal University
Exhibition Halls

Every year on November 4, during the public meetings on occasion of the Kazan University birthday, the Charter and the Statutes were brought to the Assembly Hall and put on the table in front of the portrait of Aleksandr I, painted by artist Racetou in 1806 by S.Ya.Rumovsky's order.

It is the full-length portrait of the University founder depicted in the moment of signing the Charter and Statutes. For more than a century the Emperor's portrait remained in the Assembly Hall. While in 1805 the university was being opened unpretentiously, the same event ten years later, on July 5, 1814, was celebrated amidst the greatest enthusiasm.

The first Statutes of Emperor University is exhibited next to the Charter. According to the Statutes there must be four faculties in the university, i. e. Moral and Political Science, Physics and Mathematics, Medical Faculty and Philological Faculty with the Department of Oriental Languages; the staff was to consist of twenty-eight professors, twelve adjuncts, three lectors and three teachers of fine arts.

Here one can see the picture of the First Emperor Gymnasia, which was a basis for the university, and the list of the first students. In February 1805 they announced the names of the best thirty gymnasia pupils who became the university students. They were divided into budget students, who had full university board and lodging, boarding-school students, depended on different societies and individuals, and those who kept themselves and lived outside the university.

Among the fist students of the university there was Pyotr Kondyrev, future professor of History and first professor of Political Economy of Kazan University, Perevoshchikovs' brothers - Dmitry, an academician, Rector of Moscow University later on, and Vasily, future Honored Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor of Russian Philology of Kazan and Derpth universities' and Aleksandr Knyazhevich, the Minister of Finances of Russia during the period from 1858 to 1862.

The first students took a great interest in literature, drama art and social life. In 1806 the Kazan Society for Russian Philology was organized at the University and many of them took part in its work.