The Kazan Federal University is one of the oldest and largest institutes of higher learning in the Russia. It was founded on November 5, 1804. The history of the University is the history of Russian science, social thought and culture: N.I. Lobachevsky - the founder of non-Euclidean geometry (1826); N.N.Zinin obtained aniline (1842), K.K. Klauss - discoverer of ruthenium (1844), A.M. Butlerov propounded the theory of composition of organic compounds; I.M. Simonov discovered the Antarctic during the round-the-world expedition of 1819-1821 led by F.F. Belinsghausen and M.P. Lazarev. Prof. M. Kovalsky predicted the rotation of our Galaxy. Kazan University takes pride in its graduates the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, composer M.A. Balakirev, writers S.T. Aksakov, P.I. Mel'nikov-Pechersky and Velimir Khlebnikov. Researchers who brought fame to Kazan University in the post-Second World War years were E. Zavoisky (physics), A. Arbuzov and G. Kamai (chemistry), N. Chetaev (mathematics, engineering) and N. Chebotarev (mathematics). New scientific trends were started by Prof. A.Z. Petrov, who classified Einstein spaces by the structure of the curvature tensor, by Prof. S.A. Altshuller, Prof. V.M. Kozyrev who discovered nuclear-magnetic resonance, by Prof. Sh.T. Khabibullin, who developed the non-linear theory of Lunar Physical Librations. The Engelhard Astronomical Observatory (EAO) of Kazan federal university was built in 1901 near the city Kazan (25 km).