Originally I'm from Akademgorodok, a small district of Novosibirsk, Russia. Novosibirsk is a fairly young city, by Russian standards, just a bit more than a hundred years old. Despite its young age, it is recognized as the capital of Siberia. You can check out a map from Google maps. The big body of water there is "Ob' sea", a man-made lake on Ob' river. One can see a dam on the river. The city is to the North; and Akademgorodok with the university is a bit to the East of the dam.

It's a common belief that Siberia is a cold place to live. And... there is something to it, especially in the winter. Summers are usually quite warm, sometimes it's colder in Ann Arbor than it is there. See for yourself (and keep in mind that it's probably nighttime in Novosibirsk when you are checking the weather): http://www.weather.com/weather/local/RSXX0077

I have a Bachelor's and Master's degrees with honors from Novosibirsk State University (NSU), Mechanics and Mathematics Department. During my study, I worked at the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics in Functional Analysis laboratory. The area of my research was applications of Boolean-valued models to problems in Functional Analysis.