Alexander Mikhailovich Koshurnikov

Alexander Mikhailovich Koshurnikov - a Soviet scientist, engineer, and surveyor. He worked on the design of railways and their routing through the Siberian taiga. He was born into the family of railway builder and surveyor Mikhail Nikolaevich Koshurnikov. In 1913 the family moved to Tomsk. Alexander graduated from a gymnasium there and then from the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Tomsk Technological Institute.

From 1930 Koshurnikov worked in Novosibirsk at Sibdorjelstroy (Sibstroyput) and headed a technical survey group. He took part in the construction of several important railway lines: the South Kuzbass Railway, the Rubtsovsk-Ridder line, Novokuznetsk-Abakan, Tomsk-Asino and Sinarskaya-Chelyabinsk. In 1939 he became a design surveyor at Sibtransproekt (now Sibgiprotrans). In 1942 Koshurnikov died together with two colleagues during an expedition conducting surveys for the route of the future Abakan-Taishet railway. For his contribution to the development of railway infrastructure Alexander Mikhailovich Koshurnikov was posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin.