History of the Sector

Georgy Vasilievich Nikolsky

Since its formation in 1932 and until 1939, the Sector (then Department) was headed by the famous Russian ichthyologist Dr. G.V. Nikolsky. During this period, a rapid growth of the Sector's collections began. Thanks to the activities of G.V. Nikolsky as both the head of the Sector and an employee of the Aral Fishery Station and the organizer and participant of the expeditions, the collections were completed with enormous materials from Central Asia, including Nikolsky's collections from the Aral Sea, Syr Darya and Amu Darya Rivers, and reservoirs of Turkmenistan, from the Ili River basin, as well as the materials from the Pamirs donated by the Tashkent State University; from the well-known expert on the fish of Central Asia A.F. Turdakov, as well as from the ornithologist G.P. Dementiev. Based on all these materials, G.V. Nikolsky prepared monographs "Fish of Ili River" (1939), "Fish of Tajikistan" (1938), and "Fish of the Aral Sea" (1940).

In 1940, G.V. Nikolsky was replaced by Dr. A.A. Svetovidova as the head of the Sector, who took this position until 1974. Svetovidova’s most generous labor became ensuring safety and eventually growth of fish collections during the Great Patriotic War. The largest acquisitions at that time were collections of the Pechora Ichthyological Expedition of 1943-1945 headed by G.V. Nikolsky, who published the monograph "Fishes of the Upper Pechora River basin" (1947) based on these materials. In the post-war years, A.A. Svetovidova kept on paying great attention to the growth of collections, and she took part in three major expeditions to the Far East (1945-1949, 1950-1956, 1957-1959), to the White Sea (1962), and to the lake Issyk-Kul (1964). During her work at the Museum, the latter’s fish collection increased by 3 times to become the second largest and most diverse in the USSR (after the ZIN RAS).

Sector of ichthyology in the 1990s: A.N. Kotlyar (curator of the collection of beryx-like fish) and Yu.I. Sazonov, sitting: G.L. Pokrovskaya, I.A. Verigina, E.D. Vasilieva

In 1956, Dr. I.A. Verigina took the position of junior researcher at the Sector, and also participated in the Amur expedition, and she replaced A.A. Svetovidova as the Sector’s head in 1974. I.A. Verigina collected fish in the Astrakhan Reserve (1964) and in lake Sevan (1965), and she also managed a transfer of extensive collections from the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography and the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences to the Zoological Museum. Dr. I.N. Ryabov jointed the Sector in 1974-1977, he collected fish in Mongolia as a member of the Complex Soviet-Mongolian Expedition. Technical assistants N.P. Kulikova (1974-1978) and G.L. Pokrovskaya (1986-2000) were in the Section staff. In 1990, I.A. Verigina transferred to the position of technical assistant, and she took it until 2014 making a large amount of curatorial job. During the early 2000s, technical curation of fish collections was conducted by V.A. Naumov (2002-2005) and N.M. Okhrimenko (2002-2003).

Dr. E.D. Vasilyeva took the position of junior researcher at the Sector in 1978, and she replaced I.A. Verigina as the head in 1990. Vasilyeva has constantly been paying great attention to completing fish collection by participating in numerous expeditions and trips to different regions of Russia, FSU countries, and Europe, as well as due to her close contacts with many ichthyologists. In 1990, Dr. Yu.I. Sazonov, a well-known specialist on morphology and systematics of several groups of deep-sea fish, joined the Sector and shared curatorial tasks with E.D. Vasilyeva until his death in 2002. Dr. Yu.N. Shcherbachev of the staff at the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, supervised the Sector’s collections of oceanic fish in 2002-2004, having provided a significant assistance in their both completion and preservation. Since 2014 to the present, some students of various universities have been serving as assistant technicians in the Sector.