Pushchino

Pushchino city's birthday is considered to be on April 13, 1956, when the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued "On the construction of a scientific campus of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Serpukhov district of the Moscow region". Since 1962, Pushchino has been a "scientific center for biological research", it became a city in 1966. In 2023, Pushchino, together with Protvino, was united into one city district of Serpukhov, which is now a science city.

Interestingly, the Pushchino Observatory is 2 days older than Pushchino city - its birthday is April 11, 1956. It's just that the order for its establishment was signed two days earier :)

[ December 30, 2022 ]

Pushchino is a small, green, pretty town. With birch trees and meadow grasses that take your breath away. With wonderful flower beds under multi-storey buildings (the fashion in our city was to grow flowers). Pushchino has become much more beautiful in recent years: lanterns, roads, benches, playgrounds ... We are waiting with bated breath for the restoration of the fountain, which seems to have finally begun. (In 2024, this fountain was built — a beautiful one, the largest in the Moscow region).

Pushchino is a city of biologists, but apart from biological institutes, It has an observatory with radio telescopes. One of them (BSA LPI) has been upgraded, and according to a number of indicators, is now one of the best in the world. And astronomers are using it, working on it, discovering it new objects.

And there is also a pearl in Pushchino — the ZPSH, the Pushchino Winter School, which is actually not winter at all, but very spring. But this is a separate story, and you can read about it on its own page. And about another long—standing wonderful tradition - here: These are the Open House Days at the Pushchino Observatory.

Twice a year — in April, closer to Cosmonautics Day, and in August, to the Perseids (meteor shower from the constellation Perseus) — Hundreds of people come to the observatory to listen to guided tours, lectures, and breathe our air. Dozens of amateur astronomers come, bringing their telescopes to show people the starry sky. And honestly, it's an extraordinary sight to see a large crowd of people standing in front of the PRAO in total darkness., everyone is looking at the sky, and together they rejoice at every passing meteor.

Every year more and more people come to these holidays. This is the work of an enthusiastic astronomer Vladimir Samodurov, who rallied around himself a team of assistants, and has been plowing for many years to make it all happen.

At the last Perseids, Vladimir invited everyone to come to the Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory in 2031, on the Leonids. It will be a massive star shower, a meteor shower in the constellation Leo — 2-3 thousand meteors per hour, a fantastic sight! Come and see this miracle together!

In the late 60s, Sergey Nikitin and Ella Chukhlova (a researcher at the IBF Institute of Biophysics) wrote a song about Pushchino. This song described our city so accurately and simply that it got into the heart of every resident of Pushchino, and for a long time became the unofficial anthem of Pushchino. We are quoting her text here because it is very difficult to find her on the Internet, and we really don't want her to be forgotten.

A small explanation for those who have not been to our city yet: Pushchino is an ABVGDeika, because there are microdistricts instead of streets. There are only four of them: "AB", "C", "G" and "D". There are several streets too, but they are rather an exception.
 

THE SONG ABOUT PUSHCHINO

lyrics by Ella Chukhlova, music by Sergey Nikitin, sings Sergey Nikitin.

Literal translation using artificial intelligence:

1.
There's a little town upon the map — ABVGDeika,
Barely visible, a dot, smaller than a kopek.
Thistles used to fill the gullies long ago here,
Now among the houses bloom jasmine and poppies.

Chorus:
This is home, this is my land — Pushchino.
This is where my dear friends stand — Pushchino.
You are growing, so am I — Pushchino.
Here is where I was born.
I love your forest distances,
Wildflowers near the doorstep,
The rustle of grass underfoot,
And the mist on the river — Pushchino.

2.
I live in district «V», you're near the school in «AB»,
«G» has got the sports store, «D» — the bees will sting you.
An academician is my neighbor, you may know him —
In the elevator he explains the ribosome's secrets.

Chorus.

3.
Riverbanks look out to Oka, steep and green and lovely,
Everywhere you turn your gaze — institutes surround you:
IBF, IBFM, SKB and others —
Moms and dads are in there, wrestling with their brainy thoughts.

Chorus.

[ April 15, 2026 ]

These photos are a small illustration of what is written above. Don't think that they were made outside the city — it's all the city of Pushchino! Only Oka and the field beyond the neighborhood "D" are its outskirts. Of course, our illustration is not complete at all — there are no houses, institutes, fountains, stella in Victory Park, Pushchinsky manor... There is no winter... A lot of things are missing. The full picture is too complicated, and everyone has their own.

The full picture is like a thick book that exactly 70 years ago, back in 1956, people with burning eyes and bright thoughts began to write. We came to Pushchino in 1992, and since then this book has become ours too. It is full of happiness and unhappiness, joy and sadness, exploits and tragedies.

Time will tell who will continue to write this book and how. We wanted to show a piece of our Pushchino, the way we see and feel it. It turned out that our illustration is full of greenery and flowers. But let it be so. It's just one page on the website and one page in the life of Pushchino.