Kazan Federal University
Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia — kpfu.ru
- QS Ranking
- #601
- Founded
- 1804
- Type
- Public Federal Research University
- Students
- 50,000+
- Acceptance Rate
- ~40%
- Founded
- 1804 — Russia's first university east of Moscow; Lobachevsky invented non-Euclidean geometry here
- QS Rank
- #601 (2025)
- Lenin
- Expelled from KFU Law Faculty 1887 — the event that set him on the path to revolution
- Tatarstan
- Russia's most prosperous Muslim republic: mosques and cathedrals coexist in Kazan's UNESCO Kremlin
Overview
Kazan Federal University (KFU, Казанский федеральный университет), founded in 1804 by Tsar Alexander I as the Imperial Kazan University — one of Russia's oldest universities and the first university in Russia east of Moscow — is one of Russia's most historically significant and culturally distinctive universities, ranked #601 in QS 2025 and one of Russia's universities with the highest international student share (~17%). Kazan University's historical significance is extraordinary: it was the formative institution for one of the 19th century's greatest intellectual revolutions — Nikolai Lobachevsky (KFU rector 1827–1846) invented non-Euclidean geometry here in 1830 (the idea that Euclid's parallel postulate is not necessary — that geometry can exist in curved space — was one of the most profound conceptual breakthroughs in the history of mathematics, eventually underpinning Einstein's general relativity and the curvature of spacetime); Leo Tolstoy studied at Kazan University 1844–1847 (he failed and dropped out, but the experience of Kazan University appears in his autobiographical writings); and Vladimir Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov) enrolled at Kazan University Law Faculty in 1887 — was expelled in December 1887 for participation in a student protest — and subsequently developed the revolutionary ideas that changed the world. Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan — a Russian federal republic with a majority Tatar (Turkic Muslim) population — and KFU's student body reflects this unique Tatar-Russian cultural synthesis: the city has both Russian Orthodox churches and mosques, a Kremlin (Kazan Kremlin — UNESCO, 10th-century), and a tradition of bilingual Tatar-Russian cultural life.
Admission Process
Russian students: USE. International students: kpfu.ru/eng/applicants. Russian or English programs. Large English-medium offering (medicine, engineering, economics). Russian Government Scholarship. KFU International Scholarship. Deadlines: March–July.
Programs at Kazan Federal University
- MSc Computer Science (Master's) — 120,000 RUB/year
- Master of Business Administration (Master's) — 200,000 RUB/year
- MSc Data Science & AI (Master's) — 300,000 RUB/year
- Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering) (Bachelor's) — 400,000 RUB/year
- Master of Science in Engineering (Master's) — 120,000 RUB/year
- PhD in Natural Sciences (PhD) — 200,000 RUB/year
- BSc Computer Science (Bachelor's) — 100,000 RUB/year
- BSc Business Administration (Bachelor's) — 150,000 RUB/year
- BSc Economics (Bachelor's) — 200,000 RUB/year
- BA International Relations (Bachelor's) — 300,000 RUB/year
- BSc Mechanical Engineering (Bachelor's) — 400,000 RUB/year
- BSc Civil Engineering (Bachelor's) — 100,000 RUB/year
- BSc Electrical Engineering (Bachelor's) — 150,000 RUB/year
- MBA International Business (MBA) — 18,462 USD/year
- MSc Global Supply Chain Management (Master's) — 9,153 USD/year