Located on the River Tom, the city was founded in the early 17th century as a military outpost against nomadic peoples. After that it became a place of exile, a trade and transportation center, and, finally, a university town. Today Tomsk has a population of around 500,000, of which every sixth person is a student, coming from all over Siberia, Central Asia and even European part of Russia.Due to this fact, Tomsk probably has a bigger proportion of foreign language speakers than any other Siberian city. http://wikitravel.org/en/Tomsk