The time of the "Thaw" was characteristic with rise in Soviet science and Culture. Much attention was given to secondary and higher education. In December of 1958 a law was passed, according to which eight-year general compulsory education was introduced instead of the seven-year one, that had existed before. Yield of the graduates from universities and other higher educational institutions ran up considerably. In the school year of 1958/1959 Soviet higher educational institutions yielded almost 3 times more engineers than the United States. At the same time quality of training at school and in institutes and universities began to fall down first of all due to decreased demands to the magistral staff. The number of scientific foundations increased - up to 3200 in 1958.
In the "Thaw" period a noticeable rise in Fiction literature and Art should be as well mentioned. That happened mainly due to rehabilitation of part of Culture and Art personalities, who had been victimised in the years of Stalin's reigning. In culture sphere recurrence of Stalinism was clearly noticeable. Party leaders, like in good foretime, used to intervene into fiction, painting, science, trying to make the creative process controllable to the party ideological stamps.
In the period of 1957-1962 meetings of the party leaders with personalities of Culture, Art, with representatives of Russian Intellect were traditionally held. On December 1, 1962 infamous Khrushev's visit to the Moscow artists works exhibition (under the heading of E. Bilutin) in Manezh took place, the end of that visit was the well-known rout.
Opposed to the Soviet regime dissident movement appeared and developed. "Samizdat" fiction (typewritten copying) was a part of it.
In Academy of Sciences reorganisation came about. The foundation didn't any longer comprise institutes, investigating practical themes. Simultaneously, institutes and laboratories of problematic and theoretical character were set up, especially in the realm of theoretical physics and mathematics. In May, 1957 the USSR government settled to create a large-scale scientific centre on the East of the country, in Siberia, in the city of Novosibirsk. It was decided to name it "Siberian branch of the USSR Academy of sciences". Soon the scientific centre near Novosibirsk became one of the biggest scientific centres in the country. That very year the first Soviet sinchrophasotron was launched there.
In 1956 in a small city Dubna not far from Moscow a large-scaled international research centre was founded - the United Institute of Nuclear Investigations.
At the same time production of domestic computing machinery began.
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