Street in Kazan to be named after ethnographer Yevgeny Busygin

A decree on the matter has been issued by the Executive Committee of the City of Kazan.

Yevgeny Busygin (1914 – 2008) was a Soviet ethnographer, geographer, musician (violin, alto, mandolin, and domra) and educator, researcher of the indigenous peoples of Middle Volga, honorary member of the Russian Geographical Society. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War 1st Degree for his feats in the Great Patriotic War.

In 1935, he entered the Geology and Geography Faculty of Kazan University. In 1938, he transferred to the newly formed Faculty of Geography, where he came under the scientific supervision of N. I. Vorobyov, who taught courses in general geology and history of geography. In 1940, Busygin graduated with honors from the university with a specialization in geomorphology and by assignment was to go to the Far East, but in connection with the Decade of Tatar Art in Moscow he was assigned to the Kazan Opera House.

In November 1940, Busygin was drafted into the army and sent to the 93rd Rifle Division, where he served in the music platoon, playing the trumpet. In 1941, the 93rd Division participated in the Battle of Moscow. Musicians were attached to the division headquarters, acting as couriers and adjutants, sometimes as orderlies; in 1942 near Maloyaroslavets Busygin was wounded in the head, demobilized in October 1945, and in November was accepted as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Geology and Geography.

At work, he started re-establishing the Ethnographical Museum – which was basically dismantled in 1941 when the Soviet Academy of Sciences evacuated to Kazan. Many exhibits were found in warehouses, categorized and placed back. On 1 September 1946, the Museum was opened for the new academic year. During the same year, Busygin went to his first ethnographical expedition to Eastern Tatarstan – the annual expeditions then contined until 1952 and resumed in 1956 with wider coverage.

In 1960 – 1961, the hero was commissioned to Vietnam to help prepare local ethnographers. At the University of Hanoi, he taught ethnography and joined a four month long expedition to mountain tribes of the country. He was given the Vietnamese Order of Friendship and a letter of commendation from Ho Chi Minh.

In 1952, Busygin presented his PhD (Candidate of Science) thesis on the material culture of Russian people of the Tatar SSR. Eleven years later, the scientist presented his DSc (Doctor of Science) dissertation on the Russian population of the Middle Volga region. Busygin partook in anthropological congresses in Tokyo (1968) and Chicago (1973).

Busygin worked at Kazan University until 1988 – the year he founded the Department of Ethnography. Busygin has authored over 300 papers, 10 monographs, and 4 textbooks.