On May 22, a postcard with a commemorative stamp dedicated to the 175th Birth Anniversary of Ivan Mushketov, a geologist and a geographer, was put into postal circulation in the Geographical Projects of Russia series

Ivan Mushketov (1850-1902) was a Russian geology scientist, a Professor at the Catherine II Mining Institute, a member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.

He was born on January 10 (22) of 1850 in the village of Alekseyevskaya, which at that time was the center of the Khopyorsky District of the Don Army. In June of 1872, he graduated from the Mining Institute with a diploma of mining engineer. I. Mushketov actively explored Central Asia, conducted geological surveys in the Urals, the Caucasus, as well as researches along the Circum-Baikal railway (Trans-Siberian railway) in Eastern Siberia. Mushketov discovered three minerals in the Southern Urals that were unknown in Russia, among them being arsenic iron (arsenopyrite), and found out its relationship with vein-hosted deposits of gold. He discovered a number of mineral deposits in the Tien Shan Mountains and the Syr Darya valley. He reported on the results of his investigation of Central Asia in his paper Turkestan, where he described in detail the geological and orographic structure of the large region and proved that the Tien-Shan Mountains and the Pamir-Alai consist of a number of infolded arcs of latitudinal extension. In cooperation with G. Romanovsky, he compiled the first geological map of Turkestan.

Ivan Mushketov organized a Russian service of permanent seismic observations, which he initially headed. He also gave classes of physical geography at the Historical and Philological Institute (1883-1892), at the St. Petersburg Institute of Railway Engineers (1884-1902), at the Higher Women's Courses and at the P.F. Lesgaft Physical Education Courses.

In the capacity of generalization of all his scientific research results, he wrote the seminal work Physical Geology, which became a new word not only in domestic but also in the global science of that time.

The main illustration shows a portrait of Ivan Mushketov against the map with the routes of the scientist's expeditions and the RGO logo; the commemorative stamp features images that symbolically represent geographical projects.

In addition to the issue of the postcard with a commemorative stamp, JSC Marka produced special cancels for Moscow, St. Petersburg and Volgograd.


Design Artists: S. Kapranov and R. Komsa.
Quantity: 5 thousand postcards.

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