The great geographer of Eurasia (Lev Semenovich Berg)

Berg Lev Semenovich (1876-1950) was a geographer, a limnologist, a climatologist and a soil scientist, a lithologist and a geomorphologist, a paleogeograph, a historian of geography and a zoologist. In pre-revolutionary time, Lev Semenovich took an active part in expeditions of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, and during the Soviet period he was the president of the Geographical Society of the USSR, an honorary member of many world Academies. 60 species of plants and animals, two glaciers on Pamir and Dzungarian Ala Tau, a cape on one of the islands of Severnaya Zemlya, a volcano on the island Uryup of the Kuril Ridge, etc. are named after him. In 1898, after graduation from the Imperial Moscow State University he investigated the salty lakes of Northern Kazakhstan: Selety-Dengiz, Kzyl-Kak and Teke. In 1906, L.S. Berg visited the eastern coast of the Aral Sea where he collected geological and zoological materials later processed with the participation of prominent scientists. In 1909, Berg presented his scientific work The Aral Sea. An Experience of a Physiographic Monograph in Moscow University as a thesis for a master degree. He was awarded a doctor degree. In 1902, after the end of the Aral expedition, the Balkhash one began. The Balkhash expedition, as well as the Aral one, had an important scientific value. On the materials of these expeditions L.S. Berg came to the understanding of limnology as a new branch of geography. Fundamental studies of the coast and lakes, as well as of issues of economic activity and operational opportunities of the Aral and Balkhash basins led the scientist to a modern view on them. Except the Aral Sea and the Kazakh lakes of Balkhash, Teniz, Kurgaldzhino, L.S. Berg also studied the Caspian Sea. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Berg, together with his wife and grandson, left the besieged Leningrad and, by the order of the government arrived to the Kazakhstan resort Borovoye. In Borovoye the scientist took an active part in the scientific activity of the reserve. Studying the climate of the resort Borovoye, a large anti-tubercular and ecological health resort of the Soviet Union, was one of his main research topics. L.S. Berg collected a lot of material for the definition of the age of the perch and other different species of fish from lakes Borovoye and Bol-shoye Chebachye. The scientist suggested populating lakes with more valuable species of fish, first of all, the commonn carp from Lake Balkhash. More than 50 years of L.S. Berg's scientific activity resulted in the publication of over 700 works of scientific interest, and also a significant number of encyclopedia entries.

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