Dedicated to
Academician
Vladimir Afanasyevich
Obruchev,

founder of
the Geological Prospecting Faculty
and of the school of Siberian geologists

Academician Vladimir Afanasyevich
Obruchev

A. M. KUZMIN

ACADEMICIAN

VLADIMIR AFANASYEVICH OBRUCHEV

(On the 90th Anniversary of His Birth)

In Academician V. A. Obruchev we have an outstanding scholar, who in September 1953 will turn 90 years old and who, despite his advanced age, continues to work tirelessly and to develop the materials of his earlier investigations and publish the results of his work in the form of major studies. Rare is the issue of Izvestiya of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Geological Series that does not contain his article on one question or another, 1–2 reviews of geological and geographical works, and assessments of major works by Russian scholars. He still takes an active part in editing a number of scientific journals and still replies carefully and exhaustively to the numerous letters, varied in content, that are sent to him, beginning with pioneers and workers and ending with scholars of all ranks, in which they expect authoritative support in their searches and in their aspirations to increase the might of the Soviet state and to make Soviet science the leading science in the world.

Vladimir Afanasyevich is the finest example of a Soviet citizen who devotes all his labor to the good of the Motherland, to the education of youth and to knowledge of little-known countries. He has produced, and continues to produce, an enormous literary output in the form of major works on questions of geography, geology, and mineral resources, a large number of scientific articles in journals, and an enormous number of reviews, assessments, and abstracts. In order to spread knowledge among broad circles of the population, V. A. Obruchev writes a number of popular works on questions of geology, geography, and mineral resources; and alongside this, with the same aim of popularizing geological knowledge, he has published many adventure novels and stories, which are read with enthusiasm by young people.

The literary activity of V. A. Obruchev is many-sided, and it has played an enormous educational role in the formation of a large number of geologist-explorers and, in particular, geologist-explorers of Siberia.

The mere mention of the name of Academician V. A. Obruchev among geologists evokes the image of him as a remarkable and outstanding explorer of Asia and Siberia, who very successfully and at a high scientific level conducts his investigations in the Trans-Caspian region, in the difficult conditions of Central Asia and the taiga and mountainous part of Siberia; while the remarkable works he has published on the investigations he carried out and on the history of geological research in Siberia have been recognized with medals and numerous prizes.

V. A. Obruchev was born on 28 September 1863 in the family of a military man, in the village of Klepenino, Tver Province, now Kalinin Region. In his childhood and youth Vladimir Afanasyevich became interested not only in adventure novels, but also in books with scientific-research descriptions of journeys undertaken for the purpose of studying the nature of distant, hard-to-reach countries,

After graduating in 1881 from the real school in Vilna, he became a student at the Mining Institute in Petersburg. His inclinations and aspirations toward travel took definite shape only after a geological excursion along the Volkhov River, conducted under the guidance of the experienced teacher and researcher Prof. I. V. Mushketov, who, using concrete examples at outcrops, spoke about the Earth’s past and about geological processes; he also told the students about his travels in Russia and in Central Asia, about discoveries and the possibility of new discoveries in Asia.

I. V. Mushketov’s stories revived in V. A. Obruchev his youthful aspirations toward travel and new discoveries, and he decided to devote his life to geology and to the study of little-explored countries. His interest in Asia, and especially in Central Asia, grew stronger after he became acquainted with the work of the geologist and traveler Richthofen, which contained geological and geographical information about little-explored territories of China.

After graduating from the Mining Institute in 1886, on the recommendation of I. V. Mushketov, V. A. Obruchev carried out investigations in 1886–1888 in the Transcaspian region along the Transcaspian Railway then under construction, paying special attention to sands, their movement, and, in connection with this, solving practical questions of combating the drifting of sands onto the railway line. His first major scientific works, “The Sands and Steppes of the Transcaspian Region” (1887) and “The Transcaspian Lowland” (1890), attracted great attention for their new data, then unknown to many scholars. In these works Vladimir Afanasyevich, through systematic and independent investigations, showed himself to be an outstanding researcher with great initiative, enormous capacity for work, and an inclination toward literary work. The Geographical Society highly valued both works and marked their appearance in print with silver and small gold medals.

In his works on the Transcaspian Lowland, along with a description of the geology and orography of the lowland, Vladimir Afanasyevich noted the presence of fertile steppe soils which, with properly organized water supply, could become a granary of cotton and mulberry. In Soviet times these works formed the basis for a more detailed study of the geological and orographic structure of the Transcaspian Lowland in connection with the development of the territory of Turkmenia by irrigating it with the waters of the Amu Darya. The Stalin plan for the transformation of nature was to change radically the appearance of the Transcaspian Lowland.

Despite Vladimir Afanasyevich’s passionate desire to continue his investigations in Central Asia, whose nature he liked, in 1888, at the suggestion of Prof. I. V. Mushketov, he was compelled to go to Siberia and become a geologist of the Mining Administration in Irkutsk. Here, in Siberia, in an entirely different setting, he energetically set about putting the museum and library of the administration in order, took an active part in the work of the East-Siberian Branch of the Geographical Society, and, on the assignment of the Mining Administration, studied the geology of the Angara River, made a journey to Olkhon Island, and investigated a number of deposits of hard coal, mica, and azurite, as well as mineral springs. Vladimir Afanasyevich carefully published the results of his investigations in the Izvestiya and Zapiski of the East-Siberian Branch of the Geographical Society (1890, 1892).

In 1890 and 1891 V. A. Obruchev began a systematic study of the Olekma-Vitim mountain country and its gold-bearing character; this work was interrupted in 1892 by a proposal from the Russian Geographical Society to take part in G. N. Potanin’s expedition to China and to work according to a special independent plan. As Vladimir Afanasyevich himself writes, “I of course gladly agreed: my dream of studying the mountains and deserts of Inner Asia and the land of loess—China—had come true.”

After thorough preparation and organization of the expedition, V. A. Obruchev, in 1892–1894, over the course of two years, crossed China in a latitudinal direction by means of route surveys and carefully collected geological material that enabled him to form, in its main outlines, a picture of the geology and geomorphology of Eastern and Central Mongolia, the provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu, Northern China, the mountain systems of the Qinling, Nanshan, and Beishan, the Ordos country, and the Alashan Range and the foothills of the Eastern Tien Shan.

Despite the difficulties of traveling through China and the great strain of the research work, which made it possible in a comparatively short time to collect diverse and extraordinarily rich material on the geomorphology and geology of Central Asia, Vladimir Afanasyevich found occasion to devote attention to people, to their life and labor; information about these found expression in his reports (1896) and in a number of stories from the life of China.

In his travels Vladimir Afanasyevich paid special attention to the question of the origin of loess. He says that his “observations showed that Richthofen’s hypothesis on the origin of loess requires substantial corrections.” Thus, in Central Asia, contrary to Richthofen’s opinion, there are no typical steppe basins filled with loess. Bedrock is exposed on the floors of valleys and basins. Loess, as a product of the weathering of mountain rocks, is carried from Central Asia far out to its margins; loose sands are likewise carried by winds to the periphery.

Oro-geological sketches of individual regions of research were compiled en route and printed in the Proceedings of the Russian Geographical Society. Brief results of the investigations of Central Asia and its southeastern margins were published in timely fashion (1895 and 1896). A full presentation of his observations on the journey to Central Asia, and the expedition’s travel diaries, containing a vast body of factual material on countries little known or entirely unknown, were published by the Geographical Society in two volumes in 1900–1901.

This journey to China and the materials published brought Vladimir Afanasyevich fame as a world scholar and were recognized by the Geographical Society with the Konstantin Medal and the Przhevalsky Prize. The Paris Academy of Sciences twice awarded the celebrated traveler the Chikhachev Prize.

The work of V. A. Obruchev in Central Asia is assessed by D. V. Nalivkin as follows: “Vladimir Afanasyevich’s expedition has remained unsurpassed to this day, and, to this day and probably for many decades to come, the geological data he collected are the only ones for the vast territory of the very heart of Asia. Even now Soviet geologists and geologists throughout the world make use of Vladimir Afanasyevich’s works as a most important primary source.”

In 1895 V. A. Obruchev returned to Irkutsk to his former post as geologist of the Mining Administration and became head of a large geological party which, with the participation of A. P. Gerasimov and A. E. Gedroits, was to provide, during 1895–1898, an oro-geological survey of Transbaikalia along the Siberian Railway then under construction, up to the southern borders with China. Vladimir Afanasyevich himself carried out investigations on the section from Lake Baikal to Chita. As a result of these works, in addition to regular reports, in 1905 and in 1914 he published “An Orographic and Geological Sketch of Southeastern Transbaikalia (Selenga Dauria).”

In 1901 Vladimir Afanasyevich completed the study of the geology and mineral resources—chiefly questions concerning the gold-bearing nature of the Lena gold-bearing district—and, beginning in 1907, published full and consolidated reports on this work.

Beginning in 1901, V. A. Obruchev became professor of geology and dean of the Mining Department of the Tomsk Technological Institute. During his eight years as dean of the Mining Department, V. A. Obruchev did a great deal of work in organizing the faculty and in attracting major specialists to teach subjects and conduct laboratory classes in the geological-mineralogical cycle of sciences, mining, metallurgy, mine surveying, and geodesy, and in creating new study rooms and laboratories. Vladimir Afanasyevich devoted much attention to the construction of the institute’s geological-exploration building.

V. A. Obruchev devoted particular attention and much care to organizing the geological study room and the rich library attached to it, and to creating excellent collections in petrography and mineral resources, as well as to organizing laboratories of practical geology.

According to the recollections of his students, Vladimir Afanasyevich’s lectures always attracted many listeners, among whom, in addition to students, one could see instructors and many young mining engineers. The lectures were exceptionally interesting and substantial, richly illustrated and enlivened by stories from the practice of observations, by materials from travels, and by illustrations from books, photographs, and slides.

Devoting much labor, energy, and time to organizational work in the Mining Department, in his geological study room, and to supervising practical work and diploma projects, only “in his free time,” Vladimir Afanasyevich writes, did he “continue processing the materials collected in Transbaikalia and the Lena region and compiling the final reports”; “but the geology of Inner Asia continued to attract me as before,” he says elsewhere. This was the reason that prompted the famous traveler, over the course of three years (1905, 1906, and 1907), during the summer vacations, to make three expeditions to the Border Dzungaria, located at the junction of the Altai and the Tian Shan. The results of his investigations of this country were published by him in 1912–1915, 1932, and 1939.

During his stay at the institute, Vladimir Afanasyevich, responding to the needs of the rapidly growing gold industry, wrote “Geological Surveys of the Gold-Bearing Regions of Siberia,” in which he gives a summary of the geological history of these regions, of the gold production in them, and assigns a special place to the question of the origin of gold-bearing deposits, while expressing new views on the nature of gold deposits, different from those that had existed earlier. Academician M. A. Usov assessed these surveys, in their orientation, scientific content, and practical value, as unsurpassed.

During 1910–1912, V. A. Obruchev, taking part in expert examinations on commission from various gold-mining organizations, produced a number of detailed sketches of gold-ore deposits in Siberia.

In the spring of 1912, by order of the tsarist government, Vladimir Afanasyevich was forced to leave the Tomsk Technological Institute. Having settled in Moscow, he was able to continue processing the materials of his previous expeditions and at the same time to make a number of trips to Siberia.

Thus, in 1914 he traveled to Central Altai, studied traces of post-Pliocene glaciation and the geology and tectonics of this mountainous country. Vladimir Afanasyevich set forth the results of his investigations and his new views on the structure of the Altai in Altai Etudes.

Analyzing the judgments of various researchers on the tectonics of the Kuznetsk-Altai mountain region, from 1833 to 1914, and on the basis of his own observations, he gives, “in the form of a sketch,” the geological history of the Russian Altai, which in Permian time or at the beginning of the Mesozoic era, through developing disjunctive dislocations, acquired a block structure, while the subsidence of grabens to various depths and the uplift to various hei-

give the Altai relief a stepped character. The views expressed on the role of disjunctive disturbances in the tectonics of the Altai are in harmony with Vladimir Afanasyevich’s earlier judgments concerning the tectonic structure of the Selenga Dauria, in which a serious role was likewise assigned to disjunctive tectonics. In any case, this article marked the beginning of a revision of views on the geological structure of the Kuznetsk Alatau, the Altai, and the Salair.

In 1915 V. A. visited the Caucasus, and in the following year—Crimea. After the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Vladimir Afanasyevich took an active part in the work of the Mining Council of the Supreme Council of the National Economy and, on the latter’s instructions, carried out prospecting and exploration for cement materials, tripoli, and refractory clays in the Donets Basin. Subsequently V. A. Obruchev occupied the chair of geology at Taurida University in Simferopol and during 1920 and 1921 lectured on physical and historical geology.

In 1922 he returned to Moscow and became a professor at the Moscow Mining Academy, and until 1929 lectured on ore deposits and field geology and supervised diploma designs.

Here, in Moscow, Vladimir Afanasyevich began to compile a number of summary essays on the geology of Siberia, and by 1929 he had written A Brief Essay on the Tectonics of Siberia (1924), A Historical Essay on the Study of the Precambrian of Siberia (1925), The Geology of Siberia, Metallogenic Epochs and Regions of Siberia (1926), A Geological Survey of Siberia (1927), and other major works and articles concerning Siberia.

In January 1929 V. A. Obruchev was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and, after moving to Leningrad, was elected director of the Geological Institute of the Academy. Here, at the Academy, he received the opportunity to continue processing the materials of the Chinese and Dzungarian expeditions. At the same time Vladimir Afanasyevich began preparing for publication the large work The History of the Geological Exploration of Siberia. The first three volumes of this work were completed in Leningrad (1931, 1933, 1934).

In 1935, with the relocation of the Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Afanasyevich again returned to Moscow. During 1935–1941 he continued work on compiling The History of the Geological Exploration of Siberia, published vol. IV, and prepared vol. V, which was printed only after the war. This work—a handbook for geologists, setting forth with exhaustive completeness the principal literary information on Siberia—was awarded the Stalin Prize, first class, in 1950. In the same period he wrote and published the major work The Geology of Siberia in three volumes and completed the processing of materials on Dzungaria. The processing of the materials of the Chinese expedition had to be interrupted because of the outbreak of the Patriotic War. In 1945, while working on the materials of the Chinese expedition, Vladimir Afanasyevich completed the first volume of Eastern Mongolia and one of the series of summaries on the orography and geology of Inner Asia and Northern China.

In addition to major works on the geology of Siberia, Vladimir Afanasyevich compiled the textbooks Ore Deposits and Field Geology, which went through several editions.

In addition to the works mentioned above, V. A. Obruchev wrote many works and a number of articles on traces of the glacial period in Siberia and Central Asia, a number of articles on questions of tectonics, the problem of loess, gold deposits, popular-science articles and books on travel in China—From Kyakhta to Kulja (1940), Through the Mountains and Deserts of Central Asia (1948)—and several science-fiction novels and stories for young readers.

Let us briefly dwell on the general character of the scientific activity of Academician V. A. Obruchev. Vladimir Afanasyevich himself, in Pages from My

“life” (1946) writes that the sphere of his scientific interests was defined by five major problems on which he worked and to which, over the course of many years of scientific activity, he repeatedly returned. These include the problems of the origin of loess, the ancient glaciation of Siberia, tectonics in general and of Siberia in particular, the problem of the gold-bearing character of Siberia, and the problem of the ancient Temei of Asia.

The problem of the origin of loess. No fewer than eight hypotheses have been proposed concerning the origin of loess. At present two hypotheses are contending in science: the aeolian hypothesis—Obruchev’s—and the soil hypothesis—Berg’s. A persistent discussion arose over the scientific explanation of the origin of loess proposed by Vladimir Afanasyevich, and it still cannot be considered concluded.

The problem of the origin of loess is an extremely broad subject, and in solving this problem V. A. Obruchev occupies an honorable place. To him belongs the idea of the origin of loess as a distinctive type of soil consisting of dust-like particles carried by winds from the desert and deposited on the surface of dry steppes. This hypothesis, one must suppose, arose as early as the period of his work in the Trans-Caspian Lowland, where he distinguished primary and secondary loess, but it took final shape during his journey through Central Asia, when Richthofen’s errors were revealed and when the regions of deflation and the regions of loess deposition were defined with complete clarity. He devoted several works to questions of the origin of loess, in which he set forth his views on this subject. The most important of them are: “On the Question of the Origin of Loess (in Defense of the Aeolian Hypothesis)” (1911), “The Loess of Northern China” (1928), “The Problem of Loess” (1933), “Loess as a Special Type of Soil, Its Genesis and the Tasks of Its Study” (1948), and others.

Vladimir Afanasyevich, summing up the problem of loess, says that he “came to the final conclusion that it is necessary to distinguish primary loess, having an exclusively aeolian origin, i.e. from desert dust, and secondary loess-like rocks, which have a different origin and acquired some (but not all) of the properties of loess in connection with processes of soil formation. This conclusion, despite the resistance of some geographers, geologists, and especially soil scientists, is gaining more and more supporters in science.”

The second problem that attracted V. A. Obruchev’s attention over many years is the question of post-Pliocene glaciation. Vladimir Afanasyevich first established clear traces of former twofold glaciation in the Olekma–Vitim region. Similar finds confirmed the ideas earlier expressed by P. A. Kropotkin and the observations of A. L. Chekanovsky. However, ancient glaciation in Eastern Asia had rather authoritative opponents in the persons of A. I. Voeikov and I. D. Chersky, who asserted that the arid conditions of Eastern Asia excluded the possibility of glaciation of the mountains of Siberia and Central Asia. This latter argument led to the loss, for a long time, of interest in the question of ancient glaciation of the mountains of Eastern Asia.

In overcoming this skepticism, a major role belongs to V. A. Obruchev. From the time of his first discoveries of traces of ancient glaciation to the NE of Lake Baikal, he persistently collected new materials on former glaciation, published a number of articles in which he presented ever new facts about ancient glacial deposits. Vladimir Afanasyevich devoted to questions of glaciation the large synthetic work “On the Glaciation of the Middle Vitim Mountain Country” (1928) and “Signs of the Glacial Period in Northern and Central Asia” (1931). This latter major work on the signs of the glacial period in Northern and Central Asia, which summarized our knowledge on this question, was of serious significance at the time.

The many-year struggle between those denying and those recognizing the possibility of a significant glaciation of Siberia, similar to that of Europe and North America, ended, under the pressure of facts, in favor of recognizing an ancient glaciation that covered considerable areas of Siberia. In this connection Vladimir Afanasyevich writes that “over the last 20 years this question too has been resolved, and the former glaciation of Siberia has been established. Only the details concerning its multiplicity and the delimitation of the areas of distribution in individual countries have not yet been resolved.”

The third problem concerns tectonics in general and Siberia in particular. In his work in Western Transbaikalia Vladimir Afanasyevich encountered questions of tectonics that could not be explained from the then generally accepted views on the character of tectonic movements. For example, the leading role in tectonics was assigned to fold-forming movements of the earth’s crust, whereas vertical movements, which led to the creation of faults, to downthrows and to the displacements accompanying them, were assigned only secondary significance in general tectonics.

Studies in Transbaikalia, in the region of Lake Baikal, indicated the broad development of post-Mesozoic disjunctive movements, which led to the creation of grabens with Mesozoic sediments. These observations forced Vladimir Afanasyevich to come to the conclusion that movements along faults were of major significance for the geology and relief of Siberia.

Vladimir Afanasyevich’s studies in the Kalba Range and in the Altai compelled him to acknowledge that “these movements of large blocks of the earth’s crust along fault fissures are young, and they have determined the modern relief not only of Siberia, but of all Asia” (1946). This opinion, based on numerous recent studies by many scholars, is in contradiction to the earlier opinion of Vladimir Afanasyevich himself, who had previously considered the relief of the greater part of Siberia to be very ancient.

On questions of tectonics V. A. Obruchev wrote a number of works, the most important of which are: “The Tectonics of the Russian Altai” (1915), “New Currents in Tectonics” (1926), “Young Movements on the Ancient Temen of Asia” (1922), “The Pulsation Hypothesis of Geotectonics” (1940), “The Youth of the Relief of Siberia” (1936), “The Role and Significance of Young Block Movements in the Creation of the Relief of Deposits of Rare Metals in Siberia” (1947).

The fourth problem concerns the ancient temen of Asia. According to the ideas of I. D. Chersky, the Transbaikal upland is a piece of the most ancient surface of the earth’s crust. Repeated subsequent compressions of the earth’s crust created folds around this upland—new mountain chains—but the upland itself, of profound geological antiquity, at the moments when the surrounding mountain chains were being formed experienced only uplift. The neighboring folded formations were separated from it by a zone of faults. To this upland, composed of crystalline schists assigned to the Archean, Suess proposed the figurative name “the ancient temen of Asia,” which he imagined as the first portion of the earth’s crust in the period of Asia’s geological formation. On the basis of his own studies in Transbaikalia, in the Olekma-Vitim region, and in the Eastern Sayan, Vladimir Afanasyevich readily associated himself with these views.

In 1911 the French scholar Delaunay, for the region of development of the “ancient temen” and for Asia as a whole, proposed another hypothesis, according to which the formation of the continent of Asia began with the Siberian platform, which by the end of the Silurian had emerged from the sea and was gradually encircled by folded zones during subsequent mountain-building processes. These two contradictory hypotheses did not go unnoticed. Russian geologists split into two camps: some adhered to the views of V. A. Obruchev, as an ardent defender of the views of Chersky—Suess; others opposed these views, sometimes considering Vladimir Afanasyevich’s arguments in favor of the “ancient—

of the “ancient massif,” which had by then become obsolete, and asserted that the Baikal region, together with western Transbaikalia, represents the remnant of a gigantic anticlinal fold of the Caledonian cycle, and not the ancient massif of Asia. A lively dispute flared up between these two groups.

However, it must be said that investigations in recent years and geological maps of Siberia at various scales basically confirm Vladimir Afanasyevich’s arguments regarding the Archean age of the rocks of the Transbaikal highland, which in Cambrian time, in the area between the Lena and the Shilka, was covered by Cambrian marine and epicontinental deposits in which fauna was found. Thus, in this dispute as well, Vladimir Afanasyevich proved to be right, and not his opponents.

Finally, the fifth problem, to whose solution V. A. Obruchev devoted much attention and energy, was the geology of Siberia’s gold deposits. He first became interested in gold deposits during his work in the Olekminsk-Vitim region, where he had to resolve questions concerning the conditions of occurrence of gold-bearing placers buried beneath glacial deposits, and questions of the primary source of the gold, which he regarded as having arisen both through the destruction of gold-bearing pyrite and through the destruction of thin gold-bearing quartz veinlets. The need to clarify the nature of deposits in many gold-bearing districts of Siberia prompted Vladimir Afanasyevich to compile summaries and to write “Reviews” of the corresponding gold-bearing districts, in which not only a geological description was given, but also an economic evaluation of the deposits and districts, and in a number of cases considerations were expressed regarding their prospects. The most important feature in the “Reviews” and in expert reports and individual articles containing descriptions of gold deposits is V. A. Obruchev’s effort to establish the nature of the origin of “primary” gold, which, contrary to existing views, he associated with granites, granodiorites, and diorites. The conclusions he drew about the nature of gold-bearing formations played a decisive role in the search for and study of gold deposits in Siberia.

One more feature characteristic of V. A. Obruchev should be noted. He often appeared in print as a historian of Russian geological and geographical science. He published a book on G. N. Potanin (1947). He took part in the publication of People of Russian Science (1948) and Travelers-Explorers of Asia (1951), and wrote the article “The Contribution of Russian Scientists to the Exploration of Central Asia” (1948), in which he mentioned the names of I. V. Mushketov, N. M. Przhevalsky, G. N. Potanin, P. A. Kropotkin, P. P. Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky, M. V. Pevtsov, A. P. Karpinsky, P. K. Kozlov, V. I. Roborovsky, D. A. Klements, I. D. Chersky, and other investigators. Vladimir Afanasyevich knew many of them personally, and with some was bound by ties of friendship.

Brief biographical information about the principal explorers of Siberia is given by V. A. Obruchev in The History of the Geological Exploration of Siberia. In these historical accounts, the idea running like a red thread is that Russian scientists made an exceptionally great contribution to the exploration of Asia, and that our travelers labored selflessly and purposefully, as a result of which the vast territories of Central and Eastern Asia were mapped and described. Only thanks to the work of Russian investigators, as early as the nineteenth century, was the task of exploring the inner, difficult-to-access parts of the continent advanced far forward.

Next, mention should be made of V. A. Obruchev’s participation in the creation, at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, of the Institute of Permafrost Studies, which bears the name of V. A. Obruchev. As early as 1930, with the participation of Academician V. I. Vernadsky and the permafrost specialist M. I. Sumgin, a commission for the study of permafrost was created at the Academy of Sciences, headed by V. A. Obruchev. In his report to the Presidium of the Academy, he pointed to the necessity, in many

to expand the composition of the commission at once, to give it the initiative and the possibility of developing a comprehensive study of permafrost in order to satisfy the needs of the economic and industrial development of the East and the North. The rapid successes in the practical study of permafrost prompted the Presidium of the Academy, already in 1936, to transform the Commission into a Committee, and in 1939, by order of the Government, the Committee was transformed into an Institute.

Under the leadership of Vladimir Afanasyevich, the Institute of Permafrost Studies achieved enormous successes both in the theory of permafrost studies and, especially, in practical work. Thanks to the institute’s work, the deformation and destruction of buildings erected on frozen soils have already become a thing of the past. Methods and rules have been developed for laying water-supply lines, sewers, railways and highways, and for sinking mines and wells.

Vladimir Afanasyevich himself considers the role of Soviet science in the study of permafrost (permafrost studies) to be a leading one. The Institute of Permafrost Studies headed by him became a serious aid to socialist construction in the development of the North.

Vladimir Afanasyevich, touching on questions of permafrost, says that “only the first steps have been taken, and that the time is not far off when, after the complete taming and neutralizing of this savage enemy, the permafrost specialists will be faced with the task of making the cold buried in the earth work for the benefit of man.”

Without dwelling on the great administrative work of V. A. in the Academy and on his duties as editor of Izvestiya of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Geological Series, we should pause somewhat on his literary activity. With the astonishing capacity for work, clarity, and depth of knowledge of the subject that he displayed from the first days of his creative activity, it was precisely thanks to his extraordinary organization that Vladimir Afanasyevich was able to accomplish that great work which is defined by the following volume: he has written and published more than 700 books, articles, notes, and essays. The total extent exceeds 1,700 printed sheets. In addition, being an excellent connoisseur of the literature, our scholar published about 3,000 abstracts in Russian and foreign journals.

In conclusion, it should be especially emphasized that the useful activity of Vladimir Afanasyevich Obruchev—of high quality and, in a number of cases, unsurpassed in its originality and completeness of coverage of the questions studied and in the novelty of the information reported—has always been valued very highly.

Thus, we see that his first studies in the Transcaspian Lowland were awarded the silver and small gold medals of the Geographical Society.

For his studies of Central Asia and his works, the Geographical Society awarded him the Konstantin Medal and the Przhevalsky Prize. The Paris Academy of Sciences twice honored Vladimir Afanasyevich for his works on the geography and geology of Asia with the Tchihatcheff Prize.

For the study of Selenga Dauria, the Russian Academy of Sciences awarded Vladimir Afanasyevich the Helmersen Prize.

For his summaries on the geology of Siberia, in 1926 he was awarded the Lenin Prize, and in 1941—the Stalin Prize.

In 1938 Vladimir Afanasyevich was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, in 1943—the Order of Lenin, and finally, in 1945, for the totality of his scientific works, he was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labour.

In 1945 he was awarded by the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR the A. P. Karpinsky Gold Medal.

In 1947 he was elected honorary president of the Geographical Society of the USSR.

In 1948 he was elected an honorary member of the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge.

In 1947 he was awarded the Ludwik Lóczy Medal by the Hungarian Geographical Society.

In 1948 he was awarded the Order of Lenin in connection with his 85th birthday.

In 1950 he was awarded the Stalin Prize, First Class, for the work The History of the Geological Exploration of Siberia.