Gordiagin, Andrei
Gordiagin, Andrei Iakovlevich
Born Oct. 17 (29), 1865, in Perm’; died Jan. 15, 1932, in Kazan. Soviet botanist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1929).
In 1888, Gordiagin graduated from the University of Kazan. where he was a docent from 1891 to 1901 and a professor from 1901 to 1909 and from 1914 to 1932. From 1909 to 1914 he was a professor at the University of Saratov. Gordiagin studied the vegetation and soils of the Trans-Volga Region, the Urals, Western Siberia, and northern Kazakhstan and explored the relationship between the forest and the steppe. He explained the origin of Siberian chernozems and sol-onetzes and worked out a methodology of geobotanical investigation. Gordiagin was the founder of the Kazan School of Geobotany.