Crystallography in Russia

This short message introduces a collection of papers describing “Crystallography in Russia”. A number of laboratories and institutes have contributed to give readers a chance to learn about the activities of Russian crystallographers. Last year the Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IC RAS) celebrated its 60th anniversary jubilee. The corresponding paper reflects the achievements of IC RAS both in retrospective and with a look toward future prospects of the Institute.

Due to space constraints, some very active and well known crystallographic laboratories will be featured in future issues of the IUCr Newsletter (e.g. Institute of Chemistry in Vladivostok, Institute of Elemento-Organic Chemistry in Moscow, Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics in Chernogolovka, and the Institute of Chemistry of Silicates in St. Petersburg). The activity of Russian crystallographers is clearly illustrated by the crystallographic conferences held in Russia in 2003: on chemical crystallography in May in  Chernogolovka, mineralogical crystallography in September at St. Petersburg, physical crystallography in November in Moscow, on metal alloys in October in Moscow, Fedorov’s Session in December, at St. Petersburg, and Belov’s memorial conference in December in Nizhnii Novgorod.

All these conferences were organized under the supervision of the National Committee of Crystallographers of Russia, which is a body of RAS. Members of the committee were active in the conferences, both as organizers and as participants. In 1990, the National Committee, as well as many members of the Russian crystallographic community, experienced some problems which are hopefully in the past. The National Committee hopes that this review, “Crystallography in Russia”, will strengthen the ties of Russian crystallographers to the world wide crystallographic community.

Yurii A. Osipyan
Chairman, National Committee of Crystallographers of Russia