Bust of Academician Koptiug

Valentin Afanasevich Koptiug (June 9, 1931, the city of Yukhnov – January 10, 1997, the city of Moscow) was the Russian chemist, Vice-President of Russian Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of Lenin prize, the international prize named after A.P. Karpinskii, Vice-President and then President of the International Union of Chemists, Vice-President of the Scientific Committee on environmental problems of the International Council of scientific unions (since 1992), the member of the Supreme Advisory Council on sustainable development under the UN Secretary-General. He was also the member of a number of foreign academies of sciences (Bulgaria, India, Mongolia, Czechoslovakia, Belarus). He was the honorary citizen of the city of Novosibirsk.

In 1978. V.A. Koptiug took the post of Vice President of the Novosibirsk State University. For 15 years, he headed the Department for Organic Chemistry at the Novosibirsk State University, hundreds of graduates of which work in research organizations and at the enterprises in Siberia. His students remember that Valentin Afanasevich never put bad marks to his students. He knew how to ask questions in such a way that a young man, not even very confident in his knowledge, could calmly answer them.

The bronze bust of the academician in the avenue in his name in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok was opened on June 9, 2001. The sculptor Viacheslav Klykov (the city of Moscow).