Situated 100 kilometers (62 mi) south of Moscow, and 13 km south-east of Serpukhov, on the right side of the Oka River opposite the Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Reserve.
Pushchino scientists have made seminal contributions to molecular and cell biology, bio-organic chemistry, plant and soil biology, as well as to astronomy and astrophysics - including the discovery of the solar supercorona and radial magnetic fields within it, and the discovery of radio recombination lines of highly excited atoms.
[8] The town takes its name from the village of Puschino, which was first mentioned in the 1579 records ('cadasters') of Ivan the Terrible as being a fiefdom of the Pushchin family.
The modern town of Pushchino was founded in 1956 on the hill above the Oka River, some of the highest ground in the Moscow Region, to host the new Radio Astronomy Observatory, an important resource that continues to contribute to mapping of space flights.
1 km to the west of Pushchino on important Oka river ford in the 12th to 16th Centuries there stood the ancient Russian town of Teshilov (see[10]), earthworks of which can be seen today.
At the end of the 18th century, a prominent country house was established overlooking the water at Pushchino, which for a time became the home of Alexander Alyabyev (1787–1851), an acclaimed composer.
During World War II Axis tank divisions reached 20 km from Pushchino, and until 1970 the mansion served as a hospital.
The Russian Academy of Sciences was allotted a plot of land of 761.8 hectares for the construction of a scientific campus and radioastronomy station.
Seasonal flooding regularly made this road impassable for weeks, and in 1965 a new highway was constructed along the edge of the plateau to link Pushchino with Serpukhov to the west.
Glacial moraines cover the limestone at some distance from the river, while the floodplain of the Oka is fringed by remnants of late-Pleistocene sandy dunes on the surface of upper terraces.
Pushchino itself and further south are characterized by broad-leaved forests, with a predominance of oak, linden, elm, ash, aspen, and without any admixture of spruce, before giving way to cultivated land.
The School of Music, named after A. Alyabyev, has about 300 students, and Pushchino hosts the annual and widely renowned 'Song and Bard Festival'.