Berezkin Vsevolod Aleksandrovich 
(09.02.(21.02).1899–01.02.1946)

Hydrometeorologist, oceanologist, Arctic explorer. 
Born in Kovno in the family of a veterinarian. After graduating from high school in Vologda in 1918, Berezkin served as a volunteer in the engineering forces of the Red Army. Without leaving the army service, he graduated in absentia from two courses of the Mining Institute, after which in 1920, as part of the expedition, Ubekosever participated in hydrographic work in the White Sea. For the next eight years, Berezkin combined active expeditionary activities with studies at the Naval Hydrographic School (graduated in 1922), at the geographical faculty of Leningrad State University (graduated in 1925), at the hydrographic faculty of the Military Medical Academy (graduated in 1928). Fundamental and multilateral training has made him one of the largest domestic specialists in his field. Berezkin published his first scientific paper, Tides on a Novaya Zemlya, in 1928. He took part in many expeditions in the Barents, Kara, Greenland seas. Analyzing the features of the currents in the northern part of the Kara Sea, registered in 1932 during an expedition to the "Taimyr" icebreaking steamer, he predicted the existence of extensive shallow water or not yet open islands, defending his thesis on this topic. In 1935, his predictions were brilliantly confirmed by an expedition to the "Sadko" icebreaking steamer that discovered the shallow water and  the island of Ushakov. In 1936, Berezkin defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “Greenland Sea and the Polar Basin”. In 1934–1939, he participated in various cruises in the Arctic in various vessels, among which there was a through passage of the Northern Sea Route from Leningrad to Vladivostok on an ice-cutter “F. Litke". 
All these and subsequent years, Berezkin also conducted active teaching activities at the Naval Academy, Leningrad University, the Hydrometeorological and Arctic Institutes. In 1937, he became head of the department of hydrometeorology at the Naval Academy and was approved in the academic title of professor. 
In the war years, Berezkin carried out special tasks of the fleet, since 1943 he served as head of the Maritime Administration and Deputy Head of the Hydrometeorological Service of the Soviet Union. Intensive naval and ground service in critical posts undermined his health. In 1944, he was forced to limit himself to teaching at the Naval Academy, while continuing his scientific work. He is the author of more than 60 scientific publications, including several monographs, he was a member of many academic councils, and a deputy editor-in-chief for each volume of the Sea Atlas. 
 

Merit Berezkin marked orders of the Red Star, Red Banner, Red Banner of Labor.

Before he was 50 years old, Berezkin died in Leningrad and was buried at the Smolensk Lutheran cemetery in the grave of his father Alexander Kirillovich, whom he survived by only nine years. A massive granite stele was installed on the granite pedestal on the grave. In the 1980-1990s, modern vandals, apparently having worked hard, threw the stela off the pedestal. Having responded to the letter of the author of these lines, the Naval Academy named after Admiral Kuznetsov in September 2008 restored the gravestone. 
Strait north of the Strait of the Austrian Channel in the archipelago of Franz-Josef Land. Named by Soviet cartographers in the 1950s.