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The article presents views of a visitor of the Siberian science center Akademgorodok in Novosibirsk, Russia. The first impression of the center, including the physical plant and its natural environment, is that here is an ideal realized. Akademgorodok was almost a technological nightmare instead of a humanistic showplace. The original plans called for the erection of those huge skyscrapers. Nature was to have been locked out, men would have been locked in, and minds would surely have been sterilized by artificiality.

The article discusses the development of science centers in Siberia, Russia becoming one of the landmarks of the world scientific revolution. Soviet science at Akademgorodok in Siberia was a symbol of the new status and evidence of the new working environment of the Russian scientist. In a country where just a half century ago more than half of the population was illiterate, the degree to which the modern Soviet scientist has created a new world for himself is most remarkable. His new rank not only affords younger scientists, engineers and technicians immediate and relatively gainful employment, as in the U.S., but it has also finally given a few senior scientists an active role in the decisionmaking processes of government.