Our teacher Vladimir Nikanorovich Kravchenko

In November 2020 would mark the 85th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Nikanorovich Kravchenko (1935-2009), Associate Professor, Candidate of Agricultural Sciences, Dean of the Agronomic Faculty, Head of the Department of Botany at the Omsk Agricultural Institute named after S.M. Kirov, Omsk State Agrarian University. V.N. Kravchenko was born on November 17th, 1935 in the village of Volosyanka, Novosibirsk Region, in a peasant family. After serving in the army, he graduated from the Agronomic Faculty of the Omsk Agricultural Institute. Until 1963 he worked as an agronomist-seed grower at the Educational Farm No. 2 of the Institute, from 1963 as an Assistant at the Department of Plant Production, then as an Associate Professor. Later he was twice elected Dean of the Agronomic Faculty. In 1975, the Institute Administration offered him to head the Department of Botany, which he directed for years. Together with Nikolai Alekseevich Plotnikov, a famous Siberian botanist-florist, he made numerous expeditions to the Altai Region and Kazakhstan, as well as to several regions of Western and Eastern Siberia. V.N. Kravchenko actively participated in the transfer to a new location of the Botanical Garden of the Institute, which became the base for testing fodder, medicinal, technical and ornamental plants, as well as for the training course of applied botany. Throughout his whole life, he devoted himself to science and research, described the plant species of the Omsk Region in a monograph and created a rich herbarium. He paid special attention to the protection of rare and endangered plant species. In 1997 he was awarded the honorary title of “Honored Agronomist of the Russian Federation”.