Vladimir Mikhailovich Sokolnikov: Life for the Benefit of the Motherland and Science

The article is dedicated to the well-known hydrologist, meteorologist and hydrophysicist, glaciologist, polar explorer and Baikal scientist, candidate of technical sciences Vladimir Mikhailovich Sokolnikov (1904–1971). V.M. Sokolnikov is a major specialist in the ice-thermal regime of rivers and lakes. He is one of the organizers of ice crossings on Lake Ladoga during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945). He was also a member of the first polar expeditions in the Arctic, the author of a number of works on the hydrological and ice regime of the rivers of the Leningrad Region, the Caucasus and the ice regime of Lake Baikal. In 1952 V.M. Sokolnikov came to Baikal. Here he created the Laboratory of Hydrology and Hydrophysics at the Baikal Limnological Station (later the Limnological Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences). He created the Baikal school of hydrology, which is currently developing the directions identified by V.M. Sokolnikov. Life of V.M. Sokolnikov – scientist, organizer of scientific research and teacher, is an example of selfless service to the Motherland and his cause. The article was prepared in connection with the 80th anniversary of the “Road of Life” on Lake Ladoga, in the construction of which V.M. Sokolnikov was directly involved.