), 1878, Emperor Alexander II signed a decree on the establishment of the first higher education institution between the Russian Urals and the Pacific Ocean.

The move was supported by major industrialist and businessmen, who contributed with private funds, as well as by local city councils in Siberia, but was opposed by conservative voices within the State Council, notably Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who complained about the cost of the project and the fact that local Tomsk society consisted of "all sorts of rabble".

[4] Nevertheless, the project progressed, albeit slowly, and on September 1, 1888 the first faculty (medicine) of the Siberian Imperial University named after His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (Russian: Первый Сибирский Томский Императорский (имени Его Императорского Величества Александра III)) finally opened.

[6] In March 2022, Eduard Vladimirovich Galazhinsky, Rector of the university, was suspended by the European University Association (EUA) following support for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Union of Rectors (RUR), for being "diametrically opposed to the European values that they committed to when joining EUA”.

[7] Professor Terry Callaghan, who had helped establish 21 Russian environmental research stations in the Arctic, paused his professorship at Tomsk State University after the rectors’ statement.