Vizianagaram (not to be confused with the Vijayanagara empire in karnataka) was once the cultural capital of Andhra Pradesh. It has the first music college that produced renowned playback singers like Ghantasala, SP Baalasubramanyam and P Susheela. It was headed by stalwarts in Carnatic music like Sri Ajjada Adibhtala Narayana Dasu and Dwaram Venkataswami Naydu, the violin exponent who is credited with adopting the violin to Indian classical music.

It also has the first sanskrit college in south India. Its alumni served in many universities across the nation that are concerned with literature and history. The M.R. College of Arts and Sciences, popularly knwon as M.R.College is one of the oldest colleges having a history of more than hunderd years. Its list of alumni includes

The M.R. College had the pundits in Mathematics, physics, chemistry, english and telugu of course. I recently discovered that, the elect president of the American Statistical Association Sastri Pantula is an alumni of the M.R College and his father was a mathematics lecturer there.

Many of the educational institutions that exist today greatly benifited from the generosity of the visionary Vijaya Rama Gajapati Raju. Vizianagaram has a fort and there are many dilipidated palaces and structures scattered around the town that stand as a testimony to its glorious past.


more about Vizianagaram here and here