Inostrantsev Aleksandr Aleksandrovich 
(24.06.1843–31.12.1919)

Russian geologist, professor at St. Petersburg University, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1901) for the physical category of the Physics and Mathematics Department. 
Born in St. Petersburg. He graduated from the 2nd St. Petersburg gymnasium and entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University. In the early years of foreign students, greater preference was given to chemistry, however, having got acquainted at senior courses with geology and mineralogy, taught by professors Ernst Karlovich Hoffman and Platon Aleksandrovich Puzyrevsky, changed his preferences and switched to the study of geological sciences. 
As a 4th year student, he combined his studies with the duties of a keeper of the mineralogical cabinet, and a year after graduating from the course in 1867, he became the keeper of the newly established geological cabinet. 
In 1869, Foreigners began lecturing as a privat-docent, and in 1870 he replaced his teacher Hoffmann at the Department of Geology and Paleontology. 
In 1871, he was seconded abroad for a year and a half, where in museums and on excursions he was finally prepared for further scientific activities. 
After defending in 1873, the dissertations of Inostrantsev were elected as an extraordinary and, in 1880, as an ordinary professor at St. Petersburg University. Thanks to the works of the Foreign Museum, the University’s Geological Museum soon became one of the richest geological museums in Russia. Such a development of the museum was greatly facilitated by collections collected by the Foreigner himself during his annual scientific visits, which covered almost the whole of European Russia, the Urals and the Caucasus. 
In addition to teaching at the university, for several years, Foreigners gave lectures on geology and mineralogy at higher women's courses, at the Technological Institute, at the Military Medical Academy, at the general staff and engineering academies. 
Since 1877, Foreigners headed the Department of Geology and Mineralogy of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, since 1888 became the chairman of the Russian Anthropological Society. In 1879, the Imperial Russian Geographical Society awarded him a medal to Count F.P. Litke. 
Inostrantsev's own research is devoted to the study of rocks, minerals, and the geological structure of northern European Russia. The range of his geological interests was wide: rock metamorphism, stratigraphy, hydrogeology, and paleontology. In 1867, for the first time in Russia, he applied the method of microscopic examination of rocks. 
Being one of the leading Russian geologists, Foreigners participated in all international geological congresses, was an honorary member of almost all Russian natural science societies, the Mineralogical Society and the Society of Corresponding Members of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. With the active participation of Foreigners, such applied issues as watering and sewerage of St. Petersburg, Moscow and many other cities of Russia were solved, with his participation a project of establishing a geological committee was worked out, he, or under his direct supervision, identified the geological collections of prominent Russian Przhevalsky travelers, Potanin, Pevtsov and others. 
Peru Foreigner owns over 50 major works, not counting numerous articles in various domestic and foreign scientific journals. 
In 1918, the 50th anniversary of the service of the Foreigner at the university was celebrated. The article devoted to this event in the newspaper “Our Age” ended with the words: “And now, to the delight of his many students and friends, he enjoys enviable health and vigor”. But on December 31, 1919, unable to withstand the harsh living conditions in Petrograd, caused by blockade and intervention, he committed suicide.

The merits of Inostrantsev are marked by the orders of St. Anne, 1 and 2 degrees, St. Vladimir, 3 degrees, St. Stanislav, 1 degree, the distinction “In reward 40 years immaculate service” and the medal “In memory of the 300th anniversary of the reign of the House of Romanovs. 1613-1913". 
He was buried at Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery: a granite stele. The gravestone stolen in the 1980s.

In November 2009, using the staff of the paleontological and stratigraphic museum of the Department of Dynamic and Historical Geology, St. Petersburg State University, V.V. Arkadev and G.M. Gataulina for the funds allocated by the St. Petersburg State University Rector's Office at the grave of A.A. Foreigners established new gravestone.

Glacier on Novaya Zemlya in the area of ​​the Inostrantsev Bay. Named in 1913 G.Ya. Sedov.

Inostrantsev Bay (photo by EA Korago)

Inostrantsev Bay. Left Pavlov Glacier (photo by I.I. Lavrentiev. MAKE)

Inostrantsev Glacier (photo by I.I. Lavrentiev. MAKE)

Bay on the west coast of the northern island of Novaya Zemlya. Named in 1913 G.Ya. Sedov.