The first university's laboratory for engineering measurements was located in a shed with stove heating, and the first laboratory of welding was in a storage room of a school. After the beginning of re-evacuation of industrial plants and other institutions, the university was located in a three-storeyed shop building at the Spartaka street — today there is the Detsky Mir (Children's World) shop. Initially, the Institute had only two faculties: of mechanical engineering and of tank construction, which in 1944 was renamed into the Faculty of Wheeled Caterpillar Vehicles.