Gavriil Tanfilev

Born Feb. 22 (Mar. 6), 1857, in Tallinn; died Sept. 4, 1928, in Odessa. Soviet physical geographer, botanist, and soil scientist.

Tanfil’ev graduated from the University of St. Petersburg in 1883. He was a student of A. N. Beketov and V. V. Dokuchaev. In 1885 he began working in the land cultivation department of the Ministry of State Domains, participating in many expeditions to various parts of Russia. In 1895 he began working at the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden and at the University of St. Petersburg. In 1905 he became a professor at Novorossiia University in Odessa.

Tanfil’ev developed Dokuchaev’s teachings on natural zones. He studied the geography of marshes and the interrelation of tundra and steppe vegetation with the vegetation of the forest zone: he explained the treelessness of the tundra by bog formation on the edges of forests and the development of permafrost, and explained the treelessness of the steppe by the high alkalinity of the soil and subsoil resulting from the dry climate. He proposed one of the first schemes for physicogeographical regionahzation of European Russia in 1897 and of all Russia in 1903; he was the author of Geography of Russia (four books, 1916–24). One of the Kuril Islands was named in honor of Tanfil’ev.