ТНЕ UNIVERSITY OF ROSTOV-ON-DON is the largest centre of higher education, science and culture in Southern Russia. It was founded during World War I when the University of Warsaw was evacuated to Rostov-on-Don. The inauguration of the Imperial University of Warsaw in Rostov-on-Don took place on November 27, 1915, and on December 1 regular classes started in its four faculties: the Faculty of History and Philology, the Faculty of Medicine, the Faculty of Law, and the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. In May 1917 the Imperial University of Warsaw was reorganized by a decree of the Provisional Government into Don University which in 1925 was renamed and became the North Caucasian University. New independent institutions of higher education were created in Rostov-on-Don in 1931 as branches of three faculties of the university: a Medical College, a College of Economics and Finance, and a Teacher-Training College. The University of Rostov, having already got this new official name, entered the new academic year as a three-faculties institution. It consisted of Physics and Mathematics Faculty, Chemistry Faculty, and Geology and Botany Faculty. By the end of the 1930s the latter was subdivided into Geology and Soil, Biological, and Geographical faculties. The first university research structures had been established by that time - the Botanical Garden and the Biological Research Institute. World War II interrupted the development of the University of Rostov. During the very first war months 66 staff members and more than six hundred students were called up for military service. In summer 1942 the university was evacuated to the town of Osh (Kirgisia), and it was only two years later, in 1944, that it could return to the badly ravaged town it belonged to. More than five years passed until the academic staff managed to regain the pre-war standards of teaching and research and even to surpass them in certain aspects. It was only in late 1960s -early 1970s that Rostov University actually acquired its modern organisational structure. A new Faculty of Economics and Philosophy was created in 1965, and the former Faculty of History and Philology was subdivided into two independent ones. 1970 saw the opening of the Institute of Physics, and two more were opened next year - the Research Institute of Physical and Organic Chemistry and the Institute of Mechanics and Applied Mathematics and in 1972 - the Institute of Neurocybernetics.