Excerpt from the book "New Atlantis Revisited: Akademgorodok, the Siberian City of Science" by Josephson:

"IN DECEMBER 1956, the mathematician Mikhail Alekseevich Lavrentev journeyed to the Siberian industrial center of Novosibirsk where he met with T. F. Gorbachev, a geologist and chairman of the West Siberian branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. They walked through the Golden Valley, a hilly, forested region, twenty-five miles south of the city and twenty-five hundred miles east of Moscow on the western shore of the Ob River. They agreed it would be a fine place to build Akademgorodok, the Siberian city of science. The scientific institutes of Akademgorodok would be located somewhat to the north of this site. The Golden Valley itself would be preserved for a handful of cottages for the leading scientists, several orchards connected with biological research, and trails used for hiking, cross-country skiing, and gathering mushrooms. In 1958, in the middle of that site, construction on Akademgorodok began. A mere seven years later, fifteen scientific research institutes had opened. Tens of thousands of scientists and administrators, accompanied by their families, began their life and work anew."

New Atlantis Revisited: Akademgorodok, the Siberian City of Science