Sysoev Vsevolod Petrovich

Year of birth: 1911

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Year of death: 2011

A popular Far Eastern writer. A member of the Council of Honorary Citizens of Khabarovsk city, Honorary Professor, Honored Cultural Worker of the Russian Federation, local historian, writer, laureate of the honorary sign of the Khabarovsk Territory Government “Honoris Causa” named after N. N. Muraviev-Amurskiy. Sysoev was born on November 24, 1911, in Kharkov. His childhood passed in the Crimea. Young Vsevolod engrosses himself in books about famous travelers and naturalists. He graduated from the school in Yalta.

In 1932, by a Komsomol tour, he came to Moscow, entered the Institute of N. Bauman, but “dark, deprived of fresh air audiences” did not suit him, and soon he was transferred to the All-Union Zootechnic Institute of Fur-Raw Economy, where in 1937 he received a diploma of game manager-biologist.

In the summer of 1939 Sysoev was appointed as the head of the game management department of the Khabarovsk Territory Executive Committee. In this position, he was caught out by The Great Patriotic War. Vsevolod Petrovich received the post of the quartermaster service chief as part of the 97th medical-sanitary battalion of the Far Eastern Front. He was awarded the medal “For victory over Japan”.

A game manager by profession, a naturalist with a broad outlook on vocation, Sysoev became the initiator of the works on the acclimatization and resettlement of game animals. Thanks to him, sable, beaver, mink, and muskrat appeared on the vast expanses of the Far East, from Anui to Kolyma. In 1955, Vsevolod Petrovich was forced to leave the game management. He became a teacher, and then a dean of the Geography Faculty of the Khabarovsk Pedagogical Institute, he engaged in a deeper study of nature and problems associated with the living of the beast in the Far Eastern taiga. He wrote and published a number of scientific works, popular essays, articles. A special page in life is the local history museum of Khabarovsk the director of which Sysoev was for more than ten years. The museum stores and demonstrates a lot of the exhibits brought here by Sysoev, including the rarest bird of Chinese merganser, caught by him personally, and a river shell with a large pearl. At the time of Sysoev, the museum acquired a second life, in 1967 it was awarded the title of “The Best Museum of the USSR”. In the same year, Vsevolod Petrovich was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR.

Being an active and energetic person, Vsevolod Petrovich till the last days led an active public work. He was a frequent guest among schoolchildren and students. He died in Khabarovsk on April 7, 2011, at the 100th year of his life.

His books, the most famous of which are “Hunting in the Khabarovsk Territory”, "”Hunting in the Far Eastern Taiga”, “Taiga”, “Tiger Hunters”, “Notes of the Far Eastern Naturalist (Pathfinder)”, “In the Far East taiga”, ”Amur Hunters”, “Golden Rigma”, ”The Last Leopard”, etc.

For many years he was awarded: honorary title of “Honored Cultural Worker of the Russian Federation”, honorary certificates of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR and the Board of the Writers Union of the USSR for literary contribution, Khabarovsk Territory Duma for the preservation of nature, the Order of the Patriotic War of II degree and the medal “For Victory over Japan”, the title “Honorary Citizen of the Khabarovsk City”, a lifelong governor's grants for his contribution to the development of the Territory culture. For the long-term contribution to the preservation of the Far Eastern nature, the name of Vsevolod Petrovich Sysoev was given to the “Far Eastern” zoological gardens.