Petersburg marks Lomonosov's anniversary

The 291st anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Lomonosov, the great Russian scientist and encyclopedist, will be marked on Tuesday.

As Tamara Merkulova, head of the methodological department of the Central Lomonosov Library, said, the traditional Lomonosov readings will begin on the great scientist's birth anniversary. The participants of these readings will discuss problems of how to preserve in St. Petersburg and its suburbs the memorial places connected with Lomonosov's name (one of the suburbs of St. Petersburg even bears his name). Particular attention at the readings will be paid to the problem of the recreation of Russia's first chemical research and educational laboratory which Lomonosov created in 1748 on Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg. In that laboratory he carried out experiments in chemistry and read a course of physical chemistry to students.

Among the participants in the readings will be members of the Gornitsa club who will present ethnographic material collected by them during an expedition to Lomonosov's home village of Kholmogory in the Arkhangelsk Region on the White Sea and Alexander Pekeshev, a direct offspring of the great scientist whose report will be devoted to new archive data concerning his family's history.

Apart from that, an exhibition showing the places connected with Lomonosov in St. Petersburg - their past, present and future -- is open on that day in the library. It shows models of Petersburg buildings connected with the great Russian scientist's name.