Pyotr Alexandrovich Chikhachyov, last name also spelled Chikhachev or Tchihatchev was a Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 and geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

 who was admitted into the Russian Academy of Sciences

Russian Academy of Sciences

The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....

 in 1876 as an honorary member. He authored geographical and geological descriptions of the Altai, Xinjiang

Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...

 (1845), and Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 (1853-1869). One of the Altai mountain ranges is named after him.

Education

He was born in the Large Gatchina

Gatchina

Gatchina is a town and the administrative center of Gatchinsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located south of St. Petersburg by the road leading to Pskov...

 palace, the summer residence of the dowager empress Maria Fyodorovna. His father was Alexander Petrovich Chikhachyov, a retired colonel of the Preobrazhensky regiment

Preobrazhensky regiment

The Preobrazhensky Regiment was one of the oldest and elite regiments of the Russian army. Along with the Semenovsky regiment also served as a gendarmie unit for the state Secret Chancellery in the 18th century, headed by the Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky.It was formed by Peter the Great in the late...

. Getting home education in Tsarskoye Selo

Tsarskoye Selo

Tsarskoye Selo is the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of St. Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin and of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.-History:In...

, under the direction of lyceum professors, Chikhachyov finished his education abroad, attending the lectures of famous geologists and mineralogists, and then worked in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Not a professional scientist, Chikhachyov, with sufficient money and scientific preparation, could completely give himself up to his interest in scientific expeditions and research. These produced essential scientific results, due to the observation of their author and careful treatment of the scientific material collected during expeditions, to which Chikhachyov attracted prominent specialists in different fields.

Since he received his scientific education abroad, published his scientific works in French or German, and lived mostly in Paris, Chikhachyov cannot be fully considered a Russian scientist, but Russian science is under an obligation for his essential exploration of the geology and geography of the Altai.

Expeditions and research

Chikhachyov's independent scientific activity began in 1841, when he published geological descriptions of Monte Gargano

Monte Gargano

Gargano is a historical and geographical Italian sub-region situated in Apulia, consisting of a wide isolated mountain massif made of highland and several peaks and forming the backbone of the Gargano Promontory projecting into the Adriatic Sea. The high point is Monte Calvo at . Most of the upland...

 in South Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and the environs of city of Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

. In 1842, he published a geological description of the southern provinces of the Neapolitan kingdom.
In the same year he took charge of a large expedition to the Altai. He reached the sources of the rivers Abakan

Abakan River

The Abakan , the Khakas word for 'bear's blood', is a river in the Republic of Khakassia, Russia formed by the confluence of the Bolshoy Abakan and Maly Abakan Rivers. It rises in the western Sayan Mountains and flows northeast through the Minusinsk Depression to the Yenisei River...

, Chu

Chu River

"Chui River" redirects here. For the South American Chuí or Chuy River, on the Brazil-Uruguay border and Brazil's southernmost point, see Chuí River. For the Nam Sam River or Chu River, on the Lao-Vietnam border, see Nam Sam River....

, and Chulyshman. Traveling across the Southern Altai, Chikhachyov reached territories hitherto undiscovered. He investigated also the Sayan Mountains

Sayan Mountains

The Sayan Mountains are a mountain range between northwestern Mongolia and southern Siberia, Russia.The Eastern Sayan extends from the Yenisei River at 92° E to the southwest end of Lake Baikal at 106° E...

, about which the most fantastic stories were told, not only in Western Europe but also in Russia. In the Northern Altai he found the richest coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 deposits in the world, which he called the Kuznetsk Coal Basin. He also studied the culture, life, and customs of various nomadic and settled tribes of this region.

In 1845, he published a voluminous work about Altai, entitled Voyage scientifique dans l'Altai Oriental et les parties adjacentes de la frontière de Chine, and presented a report on his Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

n explorations and the results of study of the collected material.

Chikhachyov soon began a comprehensive study of Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

, to which he devoted twenty years of his life. After the Altai trip, he became the attaché of the Russian embassy in Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

. He took advantage of his two-year stay there to study Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

, and then, leaving the diplomatic service, undertook during 1847-1863 a series of expeditions in Asia Minor, during which he made extensive scientific researches and collections. The results were published by Chikhachyov in an enormous work, Asie Mineure: Description physique, statistique et archéologique de cette contrée. This work, embracing the geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

, geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, climatology

Climatology

Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...

, zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

, botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, and paleontology

Paleontology

Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...

 of Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

, represents the classic work of Chikhachyov in cooperation with numerous experts on different branches of the natural science

Natural science

The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...

s.

After completing his Asia Minor researches, Chikhachyov ended his great travels and expeditions, having reached old age, but did not stop scientific work. In early 1878, at the age of 71, he visited Algeria

Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

 and Tunis

Tunis

Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....

, and in 1880 he published a description of his travel under the title Espagne, Algérie et Tunisie. Besides his geographical and natural-historical works, Chikhachyov published a number of political works on the Eastern Question

Eastern Question

The "Eastern Question", in European history, encompasses the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decay of the Ottoman Empire. The expression does not apply to any one particular problem, but instead includes a variety of issues raised during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including...

.

Death

In 1890, he published a few natural-scientific articles under the title Etudes de géographie et d'histoire naturelle. These represent fragments from what Chikhachyov conceived as a large scientific work on the world's deserts which he did not have time to finish, dying in 1890 of pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

. In encouragement of travelers across Asia, Chikhachyov left to the French Academy of Sciences

French Academy of Sciences

The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...

the sum of 100,000 francs.

Works

Aside from the above-mentioned books, his publications include Le Bosphore et Constantinople (1864, another ed. 1877) and Considerations géologiques sur les îles Oceaniques (1878).

External links

• Khronos biography (in Russian)