Lobachevsky was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. His parents were Ivan Maksimovich Lobachevsky, a clerk in a landsurveying office, and Praskovia Alexandrovna Lobachevskaya. In 1800, his father died and his mother moved to Kazan. In Kazan, Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky attended Kazan Gymnasium. He graduated in 1807 and then went to Kazan University which was founded just three years earlier, in 1804. 