Rudolf Lazarevich Samoilovich

Born Sept. 1 (13), 1881, in Azov; died 1940. Soviet polar explorer. Professor (1928); doctor of geographic sciences (1934).

Samoilovich graduated from the Mining Academy in Freiberg in 1904. He took part in V. A. Rusanov’s geological expedition to Spitsbergen in 1912. He was one of the initiators and the first head of the Northern Scientific-Commercial Expedition, which existed from 1920 to 1925. In 1925 it was reorganized as the Institute for the Study of the North, and he was its director until 1930. From 1932 to 1938, Samoilovich was deputy director of the All-Union Arctic Institute. He was the founder and, from 1934 to 1937, the first head of the subdepart-ment of polar lands at Leningrad State University.

Samoilovich led the rescue expedition on the icebreaker Krasin in 1928 and was scientific head of the International Air Expedition on the dirigible Graf Zeppelin in 1931. He also led scientific expeditions on the ships Rusanov (1932), Sedov (1934), and Sadko (1936 and 1937–38). A strait and an ice dome in Franz Josef Land, a bay in Novaia Zemlia, an island in Sever-naia Zemlia, and a mountain and a peninsula in Antarctica have been named after Samoilovich.

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