Mikhail Rusakov

Mikhail Petrovich Rusakov (Russian: Михаил Петрович Русаков, 20 November [O.S. 8 November] 1892 in Yukhnov – 24 October 1963 in Moscow) was a Soviet geologist, academician of the Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences, Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.[1][2]

He graduated from high school with a gold medal. In 1911, he entered the Geological Department of the Petrograd Mining Institute, from which he graduated in 1921.[1]

He worked in the Ural-Siberian Division of the Geological Committee, and then in the geological department of the Kazakh branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.[1]

His main works are devoted to the study of geology and ore deposits of Kazakhstan.[1][2]

Rusakov discovered the following mining fields: Kounrad (copper), Semizbugskoe (corundum, andalusite) Karagaylinskoye (lead, barite), Kairaktinsky (asbestos, barite, base metals) and other mineral deposits.[1][2]

On 30 May 1949 Rusakov was arrested by the NKVD as a part of falsified "Krasnoyarsk Case". By an extrajudicial decision of the Special Council of the NKVD he was sentenced to 25 years of labor camps. He worked in a sharashka OTB-1 in Krasnoyarsk. He was freed and rehabilitated on 20 March 1954[3]

Mineral Rusakovite, water ferrovanadate Fe5 [VO4] 2 (OH) 9 • 3H2O[1][4] is named after Mikhail Rusakov.

There is a monument to Rusakov in the city of Balkhash erected in 1992 to commemorate the centenary of the scientist[3] and a school and a street of the city is named after him.[3]