The Department of Geodesy is one of the oldest in the university: it was founded in 1842, at the time of the establishment of the Civil Engineering School in St. Petersburg. Since the foundation of the department, the “Geodesy” discipline has been an independent discipline; for example, in the 1858/1859 curriculum of the Civil Engineering School, there was a dedicated course of lower-level geodesy with two hours of lecturing per week.

At various times, the department was headed by prominent surveyors, world-famous scientists, such as N. A. Boguslavsky, V. V. Vitkovsky, V. A. Wazheevsky, O. G. Ditz. The modern Department of Geodesy was headed by M.M. Gubin (1960−1963), A.I. Bolotin (1964−1976), V.N. Ganshin (1976−1986), I.M. Repalov (1986−1993 and 1998−2002), A.I. Galoshin (1993−1998), Academician of the RANS Yu. I. Bespalov (2002−2010).

1842

• The Department of Geodesy was established in 1842, along with the College of Civil Engineers. From the very beginning, "Geodesy" was a separate discipline. Prominent geodesists and famous scientists N.A.Boguslavsky, V.V.Vitkovsky, V.A.Vazheevsky, O.G.Ditts served as heads of the department in the pre-revolutionary period.

• A multi-specialty Department of Urban Development was established in 1954. It was awarding degrees in urban development and municipal services in two specializations: "Municipal Transportation and Communication Roads", “Engineering Development and Improvement of Urban Areas.”

• The Department held educational and research works in a broad sphere of matters: engineering equipment of buildings and territories; urban sanitary redevelopment; city transport; streets, roads, transport engineering; engineering development and urban redevelopment; urban hydrotechnics.

• The Department was focusing at water pollution control, steam hydraulics, geodesic exploration in the Arctic and permanently frozen soils, traffic organization and recreational territories planning. Quite a few textbooks, monographs and guides were published and used in teaching not only at our institute. Starting from the 1960-s, the Department was actively engaged in the construction development issues in the Arctic.

• In 1980-s and beginning of 1990-s the Department was restructured to work with students of the Architectural Faculty. For a while, it stopped awarding degrees but resumed in 1993. With the progress and software support of geodesic research, specialists of the Department significantly expanded the scope of their research activities.