Between 21 August and 12 September, young zoologists from the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences of Voronezh State University, a postgraduate student, Dmitry Zagumyenny, and a 4th year student, Artyem Belyaev, took part in an expedition on the research ship “Akademik Topchieyv”.
The expedition was organised by the Papanin Institute for Biology of Inland Waters of the Russian Academy of Sciences and its goal was to study the Volga. The studied area covered a large territory between the Rybinsk water reservoir in the Yaroslavl region and the mouth of the river in the Astrakhan region. Different teams of researchers took over from each other on the ship during the voyage.
When a group of young researchers from VSU joined the research team, their task was to select hydrobiological samples in different parts of the river.
“The expedition followed the Volga through Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Cheboksary, Kazan, Ulianovsk, Toliatti, Samara, Saratov, Volgograd, Astrakhan, and many other cities. And it was full of exciting events. Some of them were difficult to predict. One day, our ship was hit by a violent storm and we had to spend nearly a day in a harbour and then tried to catch up with the schedule till late at night,” said Arteym Belyaev.
The material collected during the expedition will help assess the water biological resources in the studied length of the river Volga. Apart from general research, the students also collected samples for their own investigations of protozoa.
