Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute, or FAI, is a research institute in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The institute was founded in 1941 as the Institute for Astronomy and Physics of the Kazakh branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, when a group of Soviet astronomers was evacuated during World War II from the European parts of the USSR to Almaty. In 1948 G.A. Tikhov had organized an independent sector of astrobotany, and in 1950 astronomers established the Astrophysical Institute of the Kazakh SSR. In 1989 the institute was renamed after Vasily Fesenkov, one of its founders.