Vladimir Nikolayevich Dav

Vladimir Nikolayevich Dav – a Soviet geologist and the founder of the Monchegorsk Museum of Colored Stone. Vladimir Nikolayevich was born on May 22, 1925 in Leningrad into a family of a military officer and a ballerina. From his mother he inherited artistry, musicality and a sense of poetry. He completed the ninth grade of a Leningrad school with a certificate of commendation.

At sixteen, Dav became the deputy political officer of a platoon in a Komsomol regiment of the fire-defense forces during the Siege of Leningrad. After that he volunteered for the front. He served as an artillery reconnaissanceman on the Leningrad and 1st Ukrainian fronts and was wounded four times. For his service he was awarded the Orders of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class, as well as other medals. After the war he graduated from school with a gold medal, completed the Mining Institute with honors and defended his Candidate of Sciences (PhD) dissertation. He took part in numerous geological expeditions across the country, including discovering a chrysoprase deposit in Kazakhstan.

In the early 1960s Dav became a popular television presenter on Leningrad television, hosting programs about stones. Later he worked at the Kola Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, at the Central Kola Complex Geological Expedition, and founded the Monchegorsk Museum of Colored Stone with a unique exhibition. Vladimir Nikolayevich Dav passed away on July 10, 1984, and was buried in Monchegorsk.