Kaminsky Anton Antonovich
(05(17).11.1862–05.08.1936)
Outstanding
Russian meteorological climatologist.
He was born in a small village of Sebezhsky district of the
Vitebsk province into a large and poor noble family. In
childhood, received a strict home education. In
addition to the necessary knowledge, he was instilled discipline,
love of learning, habit of work.
At the age of 12, the boy experienced a terrible tragedy: he lost
his parents and went to the care of relatives. Already
at this age, life made him manifest the masculine qualities inherent
in him by nature and parental education. He
understood the importance and necessity of education and with great
diligence he studied at the Mitava Gymnasium. After
graduating from it, in 1882, Kaminsky entered the Physics and
Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University, where, despite the
difficult material conditions, he gave all his strength to gaining
knowledge.
It is known that the choice of the direction of a person's
activity is often determined by the influence of some outstanding
personality met by a person in his younger years. For
Kaminsky, Professor A.I. Voyeikov. His
remarkable lectures fascinated Kaminsky, and he also chose
meteorology as his future specialty on the student’s bench.
After graduating from the University in 1888, Kaminsky worked for
some time in various organizations of the capital, but by the end of
1888, realizing his desire to engage in meteorology, he entered as a
trainee in the
Main Physical Observatory of the Academy of
Sciences. After
reviewing the topics of all its departments, he chose to work on the
organization of a network of meteorological stations in the field of
climatology, an area of activity that has become a matter of his
life. As
time has shown, in the face of Kaminsky, the observatory acquired a
person of enormous energy, who possesses great organizational
abilities, and a clear executor of the decisions made.
Soon Kaminsky was connected to the responsible work on the
organization of a network of meteorological stations. In
a short time he became the right hand of the network manager R.R. Bergman,
a specialist worthy in all respects, but having a gentle nature,
which adversely affected such work. Due
to his nature, Kaminsky was able to find people to make
observations, maintain discipline among observers, find additional
funds for organizing and equipping stations, and solve a huge amount
of routine routine issues every day. He
made enormous efforts to organize the inspection of meteorological
observations. Attracting
to the inspection and organization of stations everyone who was
involved in the observations and was well acquainted with them,
Kaminsky often traveled to remote, uninhabited areas for this
purpose. Particularly
impressive was his trip to the north of Russia in 1899. During
it, he traveled almost all of Pechora and the Barents Sea coast,
from the Murmansk coast, from Cola, walked with a barometer and
instrumentation margin of more than a hundred kilometers to organize
a meteorological station on Imandra Lake in a small village now
called Khibiny. For
a long time it was the only one in the vast space and was of great
importance for the meteorological support of the western part of the
Kola Peninsula. For
the entire pre-revolutionary period of Kaminsky’s activity, the
network of Russian meteorological stations increased from 372 in
1889 to 1416 in 1914.
Kaminsky combined very laborious organizational, inspection, and
methodological work with fruitful research activities, making his
personal contribution to the study and solution of a wide variety of
meteorology and hydrology issues. Especially
a lot of research conducted by him to study the humidity of the air,
the circulation of water vapor and its transfer within Russia. All
these questions were directly related to the solution of the drought
problem and had not only theoretical, but also practical
significance.Creative communication with Kaminsky was a great help
to the great V.V. Dokuchaev
when he developed a set of measures to combat drought.
Kaminsky was one of the first scientists who initiated a
systematic and comprehensive study of the climatic features of
Russian resort areas. By
joining the Society for the Preservation of Public Health, he solved
the problem of familiarizing doctors with the various climatic
features of our country, in particular its resorts, and using them
for treatment.
Beginning in 1918, Kaminsky completely switched to work in the
field of hydrology. He
organized a committee for research on hydrology, meteorology and
geology and, as its chairman, led the hydrometeorological service of
commercial ports on the Baltic Sea. In
the 1920s, he combined hydrometeorological services on various seas,
attracting the best scientists to the work, among whom was V.Yu. Vize. Kaminsky
headed the Central Hydrometeorological Bureau of the country, in
which, apart from work in the field of hydrology and meteorology,
fluctuations in sea level, sea currents and coastal morphology were
studied, the thickness and physical properties of sea ice cover and
many others were studied. Kaminsky
did a lot personally in studying the causes of floods in Leningrad,
the study of currents and ice cover in the Neva Bay, in the question
of the sewage system of Leningrad.
15 line
Vasilievskiy Island, house 8/40 . Here
in apartment 21 Kaminsky lived at the time of 1934 |
The achievements of Kaminsky in the field of training experienced
scientific and technical staff in creating a school of domestic
climatologists are great. In
addition to giving lectures at numerous temporary courses, Kaminsky
taught for many years at various central educational institutions. He
conducted courses in climatology, meteorology, hydrology at the
agricultural and pedagogical institutes, Leningrad State University.
Grave A.A. Kaminsky. 1975 |
Grave A.A. Kaminsky
after the destruction of the gravestone |
Grave A.A. Kaminsky
after the first
G.P.Avetisov's intervention |
He died in Leningrad. On
the occasion of the death of Kaminsky, the obituaries
of professors V.
Obolensky, L.
Berg, Y.
Shokalsky, director
of the MGO P. Molchanov, J.
Edelshtein were
placed in the
newspaper “Leningrad
University”.
He was buried at Smolensk
Lutheran cemetery, marble stele. The
tombstone was stolen in the 1980s, only the fence and the remains of
the foundation remained.Negotiations with the leadership of the Main
Geophysical Observatory about putting in order the graves of their
outstanding staff member led nowhere. What
turned out to be impossible for a glorious observatory was easily
realized by a private individual - G.P Avetisov. First,
so that the grave was identified, I attached a metal-plastic plate
with an inscription to the remains of the gravestone, and then
restored the gravestone.
Kaminsky Islands
(photo by EA Gusev) |
The islands northeast
of Cape Sterlegov near the coast of Khariton Laptev on the coast of
Taimyr. Named by I.A. Landin in
1933.
Cape and
peninsula east
of Cape Sterlegova on the coast of Taimyr. The
cape is named in 1901 by the Russian Polar Expedition of E. V. Toll
in 1899–1903. |