As historian Alfred J. Rieber[4] wrote, "The marriage of technology and central state power had a natural attraction for Peter the Great and his successors, particularly Paul I, Alexander I, and Nicholas I".

[5] All three had had a military education and had seen the achievements of the engineers of revolutionary and imperial France, who had reconstructed the great highways, unified the waterways and erected buildings throughout Europe in a more lasting tribute to the French than all of Napoleon's victories.

[6] Though located in St. Petersburg, the university is on a federal rather than local level and has partnerships with global oil, gas, and mining companies, as well as governments.

Its museum[7] is home to one of the world's finest collections of gems and mineral samples, and the university building is a Neoclassical masterpiece designed by Andrey Voronikhin.

It is the first building that can be seen from ships travelling into the city from the Gulf of Finland, and is a prime example of the monumental neoclassicist style favoured in Imperial Russia in the early 1800s.

He also designed the Kazan Cathedral – inspired by St. Peter's Basilica in Rome – at Nevsky Prospect, as well as buildings at Paul I's estate at Pavlovsk Palace south of the city.

The design of the university building reflects the idea that mining is a harsh and difficult pursuit – as well as symbolising the entry into the underground world of Pluto through the portico, decorated with 12 columns of the Doric order.

[16] One of the key achievements of the university's scientists has been the invention of techniques to drill through several miles of Antarctic ice to reach the sub-glacial Lake Vostok.

Lake Vostok is one of the world's most closely watched scientific projects, and the expertise of the Russian drillers, directed by Professor Vasiliev, is recognised.