Can you believe that the very building you’re standing in front of was once the tallest building in all of Europe? This is the Korpus Sverkhvysokoikh Davleniy, a giant of Soviet architecture, a scientific titan. Since 1958, it has been the home of the High Pressure Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a place where the secrets of the Earth are unlocked under immense pressure. The institute, founded by Academician L.F. Vereshchagin, first gained international recognition in the early 1960s due to its tremendous success in the synthesis of diamonds and cubic boron nitride.
Imagine the ingenuity required to create these impossibly hard materials. The scientific breakthroughs didn’t stop there. In 2004, the institute stunned the world again by discovering superconducting diamonds, something that had never been seen before. The institute’s scientific mission has always been to explore the behavior of matter under extreme pressure. It’s a world far removed from our everyday experience, a realm where the laws of physics are bent by the crushing force of pressure. The institute’s work is truly fundamental, pushing the very limits of our understanding of the universe. It’s not just diamonds they’re creating, it’s new knowledge, new materials, new possibilities! Just think, the scientific discoveries that have been made here have been used all around the world, in countries as far apart as Great Britain, Germany, France, USA, China, and even more! It’s a testament to the strength and impact of Russian science.