Obruchev Vladimir Afanasyevich 
 (28.09.(10.10).1863 – 19.06.1956)

An outstanding Russian geologist and geographer, writer, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, honorary president of the Geographical Society of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labor, winner of the V.I. Lenin Prize. Lenin, two state awards of the USSR. 
Born in the village of Klepenino, Rzhevsky district, Tver province, in the family of a retired military man. After graduating from the Vilensky real school in 1881  he entered the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, from which he graduated in 1886. 
In 1888  on the recommendation of I.V. Mushketov Obruchev went to Irkutsk, where he occupied his first public office. From this point on for many years he participated in various expeditions. In the summer of 1890  Obruchev went from Irkutsk to the north to study the gold-bearing region located in the basin of the Vitim and Olekma rivers. The following summer, he repeated the trip to the Olekma-Vitim mines, and then received an unexpected offer from the Imperial Russian Geographical Society to take part in the expedition of the famous traveler Potanin, heading to China and South Tibet.
Within two years it covered 13,625 kilometers and conducted geological surveys on almost every one of them. The collected collection contains seven thousand samples, about 1200 prints of fossil animals and plants. He collected fundamental information about the geography and geology of Central Asia and in fact completed its study, continuing the work begun by Russian researchers. In fact, there are no more white spots in Central Asia.

Obruchev arrived in St. Petersburg already world-famous traveler. His letters from China, articles, travel sketches were published in newspapers and magazines. The Paris Academy of Sciences awarded him the PA award. Chikhachev. A year later  he received an award named after N.M. Przhevalsky, and a year later - the highest award of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society - the Konstantinovsky gold medal. In the years 1900-1901 according to the results of his research, Obruchev published the fundamental two-volume work “Central Asia, Northern China and Nanshan”. He made a popular description of his trip to Central Asia only 45 years later, having published the book From Kyakhta to Gulja in 1940. 
In 1895  Obruchev went to Eastern Siberia as the head of the mining party, whose task was to study the localities adjacent to the Trans-Siberian Railway under construction.He dedicated this work over three years. 
In 1901  Obruchev accepted the offer of the director of the newly opened Tomsk Technological Institute to take over the department of geology and organize a mining department. Upon arrival in Siberia, he conducted a survey in the Lensko-Vitim gold-bearing area and made a geological survey of the Bodaibo River Basin. Since that time, for eleven years, Obruchev devoted himself to teaching, while not leaving his research trips. In 1905, 1906 and 1909, he made three trips to Xinjiang, where he explored the articulation of the mountain systems of the Altai and Tien Shan, which is key to understanding the geological structure of the Asian continent. 
In 1912  Obruchev moved from Tomsk to Moscow, where he wrote a number of popular science works. In 1920, the scientist was elected professor in the department of applied geology at the newly organized Moscow Mining Academy. 
Working on scientific problems and engaging in teaching, Obruchev did not make long journeys, but every year, during 1923–1928. traveled to the Caucasus, to Kislovodsk, where he made excursions to the surrounding mountains. In 1936, at the age of 73, he made a long trip to Altai, where he examined the mercury deposit and the outlets of the marbles; the latter were intended for the construction of the Moscow Metro. 
Peru Obruchev, in addition to dozens of scientific works, owns a large number of popular science books, among which the best are Plutonium and, of course, Sannikov Land, which read more than one generation of people. He also wrote a number of biographical essays about Russian researchers in Asia: Przhevalsky, Chersky, Mushketov, Potanin, Kropotkin, Komarov. 
He died in Zvenigorod, Moscow Region. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery. 
Glacier on the south coast of Hooker Island archipelago Franz Josef Land. Named no later than 1955.