Yuri Vasilyevich Pruss, an Honored geologist of the Russian Federation, an Honorary citizen of the city of Magadan, and one of the region’s largest specialists in placer gold, passed away on May 11.
Yuri Vasilyevich was a native of Kolyma, was born on February 27, 1937 in the village. Nagayev Bay (now the city of Magadan). He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold. In 1961, he began his career as a senior geologist technician at the Yagodninsk exploration expedition, then was appointed senior geologist of the gold placer exploration party. In 1974, he successfully defended his PhD thesis and was appointed head of the Yagodninsk integrated geological exploration expedition.
From 1973 to 1980, dozens of new placer gold deposits were discovered under his leadership, and he himself was awarded the “Discoverer of the Deposit” badge. From 1980 to 1983, Yuri Pruss headed the largest Dukat geological exploration expedition in the Northeast, then he was appointed head of the department of the Northeastern Territorial Geological Administration.
Since 1984, he has been a professor at the Department of Geology of the Magadan Branch of the Khabarovsk Polytechnic Institute. In 1989-1991, he was engaged in the exploration of gold deposits in Cuba. While working there as the chief consulting geologist at the company for the search and exploration of gold deposits, he held the first conference for this country on the methodology of exploration for placer gold. Upon his return to Magadan, he became the head of the Northeastern Research Center for Mineral Resources.
In 1998, he became director of the Magadangeologiya enterprise. In the same year, he was appointed Chairman of the Committee of Natural Resources for the Magadan Region, worked until October 2001. In 2002, he was invited to work at the Northeastern Integrated Research Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he created a service for the introduction of scientific research into production, intellectual property protection and development of innovation policy. He worked as a senior researcher at the Laboratory of History and Economics and at the same time as the head of the Magadan Innovation and Technology Center (MITC) SVKNII FEB RAS.
Yuri Vasilyevich was a candidate of geological and mineralogical sciences, a professor at Northeastern State University, chairman of the Magadan branch of the Russian Geological Society, the author of many scientific papers, several dozen articles aimed at using the internal reserves of the region, an active propagandist of knowledge on the history of the exploration service in the Northeast of Russia, the editor of the books “Gold of Kolyma” (6+) and “Geologists of the Northeast” (6+). In 2017, the Magadan publishing house Okhotnik published a book by Yu.V. Prusa “Geological Survey of the North-East of Russia, 1931-2014” (12+). He was the editor-in-chief of the Kolyma magazine (12+).
He was awarded the Order of Honor (2009), the A. E. Fersman Medal “For Services to Geology”, and insignia.
Until the last few days, he worked at the Central Research Institute.
We offer our sincere condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Yuri Vasilyevich Pruss.