Rikhter, Andrei Aleksandrovich

Born Aug. 3 (15), 1871, in the village of Kurovskoe, in present-day Kaluga Raion, Kaluga Oblast; died Apr. 1947, in Moscow. Soviet plant physiologist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1932, corresponding member, 1929) and of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1935).

Upon graduation from the University of St. Petersburg in 1893, Rikhter became an instructor there. In 1917 he was made a professor at the University of Perm’; he became a rector there in 1921. He was made a professor at the University of Saratov in 1924 and at Moscow University in 1931. In 1932, Rikhter became the director of the Laboratory of Plant Biochemistry and Physiology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and from 1934 to 1938 he was the director of the K. A. Timiriazev Institute of Plant Physiology (organized from the Laboratory of Plant Biochemistry and Physiology). In 1939, Rikhter was appointed director of the Laboratory of Photosynthesis of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Rikhter’s principal works dealt with alcohol fermentation, photosynthesis, plant resistance to unfavorable environmental conditions (drought, low temperatures, soil salinity), immunity, and the physiology and biochemistry of industrial crops. He perfected a method for studying photosynthesis.

Rikhter was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.