Karbasnikov Mikhail Nikolaevich 
(1888 – March 1942) 
 

Russian geographer, climatologist. 
Coming from the Pomeranian family living in Kholmogory. Karbasnikov's father began an independent life as a boy in the Cherkesov bookstore.Thanks to his abilities, energy and business acumen, he eventually became a well-known book publisher, owner of a very large book firm that had stores in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw. 
Karbasnikov after graduating from the third gymnasium in 1907 entered the natural department of St. Petersburg University. 
During the First World War, he served as an ensign in artillery, and on his return from the front he entered the Geographical Institute. However, his studies were interrupted by service in the Red Army, and he could continue it only in 1921. Years of study were a difficult period in the life of Karbasnikov. His father died in 1921, he himself had to take on any job in order to support his mother, wife and daughter. After graduating from the institute in 1925, Karbasnikov became an assistant at the department of climatology at A.V. Voznesensky and A.A. Kaminsky.

The Geographical Institute, which existed only until 1925 (transformed into the geographical department of Leningrad State University), had a powerful teaching staff and gave Karbasnikov excellent professional training. He left the institute a geographer with a broad scientific outlook. His areas of interest included regional geography and landscape science, geomorphology and quaternary geology, botany and soil science.

The scientific and pedagogical activity of Karbasnikov was held at the Leningrad State University at the departments of climatology and country studies, at the Geographical and Economic Institute, as well as at a number of other organizations, on the orders of which he performed almost annual expeditions. 
Began Karbasnikov with the study of sediments of the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, he worked in Yakutia and Transbaikalia, in 1932-1933 as a meteorologist, he spent the winter at polar station "Russian Harbor" on Novaya Zemlya, whose chief was M.M. Yermolaev, however, he paid the most attention to the study of the Russian North - the Arkhangelsk, Vologda regions, Karelia. A favorite topic of his research was the study of the geographical features of closed lakes.

Karbasnikov was a born geographer: an excellent observer, an enthusiastic person, a hardy and unpretentious traveler. In addition to his excellent professional skills, he, admittedly, possessed amazing human virtues. According to the comments of his comrades, he was the most beloved person in the Faculty of Geography, he had no enemies, everyone understood that he was a man of rare kindness, delicacy and modesty, who was not able to make the slightest trouble to others. 
He died in besieged Leningrad from bilateral pneumonia, aggravated by severe exhaustion. Place of burial unknown. 
Glacier to the south-west of Inostransev Bay and the bay on the western shore of Chayev Bay on the northern island of Novaya Zemlya. In 1933, the winterers of the Russian Harbor polar station were named.