Boris Dobrynin

Born May 14 (26), 1885, in Minsk; died Sept. 4, 1951, in Kiev. Soviet geographer, doctor of geography (1935).

Appointed privatdocent of Moscow University in 1916 and professor in 1931, Dobrynin was from 1938 to 1941 chairman of the subdepartment of physical geography of foreign countries, which was formed upon his initiative, and chief of the department of the Geography Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1934 to 1939. Chairman of the subdepartment of the physical study of countries of the University of Tbilisi from 1942 to 1950, he was chairman of the subdepartment of physical geography of the University of Kiev from 1950 to 1951. Dobrynin traveled in Western European countries from 1908 to 1911 and in Mexico in 1925. He did most of his field work in the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and in several regions of the east European plain. He wrote university textbooks on the physical geography of Europe and Asia.