The 23rd of January, 1901 in St Petersburg there was born scientist, geographer, professor, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the President of the Geographical Society of the USSR from 1964 to 1977, Stanislav Vikentyevich Kalesnik. A large and fruitful period of the history of the Society is connected with the name of this scientist.
Future geographer graduated from the Roman Catholic school in 1917. He entered the geographical department of the Petrograd Higher Military School of Education in 1921, and he entered an extramural department of the Geographical Institute in 1924, which was converted to geographical faculty of the Leningrad University in 1925.
kalesnik.jpg
The main scientific interest of S.V.Kalesnik was glaciology (the study of all forms of ice on the Earth's surface). His expeditions in the mountain regions of Central Asia were of great importance, there the explorer researched and described dozens of glaciers. He discovered new types of glaciers in the areas of mining site Akshiyryak (Central Tien Shan). They are the following: glaciers of flat tops, glaciers of hanging valleys and asymmetric glaciers.
Stanislav Kalesnik was the first in the USSR who read glaciology course at the Leningrad University, initiated glaciological scientific literature and became one of the founders of the Soviet school of glaciologists.
During the period from 1955 to 1977 the scientist was working in the field of limnology. He headed the Limnology Laboratory of the USSR Academy of Sciences, he put a lot of effort to convert it to the Institute of Limnology. There conducted the research of the nature of lakes in a variety of geographical conditions.
For his scientific work in the field of modern glaciation of the USSR and the common problems of glaciology the Geographical Society of the USSR awarded him the Gold Medal named after F.P.Litke in 1951. And the scientist was awarded the highest award of the USSR Geographical Society – the Great Gold Medal in 1966 for a set of works in common geography, history and geography of landscape.
For more than half a century S.V.Kalesnik had been connected with the Geographical Society of the USSR. He became a full member of the Society in 1931, he was appointed as a Secretary of Glacier Commission the same year. S.V.Kalesnik was appointed a Chairman of the Department of Physical Geography of the Society in 1939. He became a scientific secretary in 1940, and a Vice-President in 1952, then he was appointed the President of the Geographical Society in the year of 1964. In this honorable post the scientist was re-elected twice – in 1970 and 1975.
S.V.Klesnik contributed to the expansion and strengthening of international cooperation of geographers. The scientist was elected honored member of the Geographical Societies of the USA, Poland, Serbia, Croatia and Hungary. He became vice-president of the International Geographical Union.
The multi-faceted activities of S.V.Kalesnik, talented explorer, teacher, public figure, defined the general recognition of his services to the national geography. The glaciers in the Zailiyskiy and Jungar Altau, glaciers in the Polar Urals, - are named after him, and the monographs of the scientist have not lost their relevance even today.