Pyotr Petrovich Shirshov (December 25 (O.S. December 12), 1905, Ekaterinoslav (today Dnipropetrovsk

Dnipropetrovsk

Dnipropetrovsk or Dnepropetrovsk formerly Yekaterinoslav is Ukraine's third largest city with one million inhabitants. It is located southeast of Ukraine's capital Kiev on the Dnieper River, in the south-central region of the country...

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

) - February 17, 1953, Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

) was a Ukrainian

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 Soviet oceanographer, hydrobiologist

Hydrobiology

Hydrobiology is the science of life and life processes in water. Much of modern hydrobiology can be viewed as a sub-discipline of ecology but the sphere of hydrobiology includes taxonomy, economic biology, industrial biology, morphology, physiology etc. The one distinguishing aspect is that all...

, polar explorer, statesman, academician (1939), and Hero of the Soviet Union

Hero of the Soviet Union

The title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society.-Overview:...

 (1938).

Pyotr Shirshov graduated from the Odessa Public Education Institute in 1929. In 1929-1932, he was a researcher at the Botanical Garden of the Soviet Academy of Sciences

Moscow Botanical Garden of Academy of Sciences

Tsytsin Main Moscow Botanical Garden of Academy of Sciences, founded in April 1945, is the largest in Europe. It covers a territory of approximately 3.61 km², bordering the All-Russian Exhibition Center, and contains a live exhibition of more than twenty thousand different species of plants...

. In 1932-1936, Pyotr Shirshov was employed as a researcher at the All-Union Arctic Institute

Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute

The Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, or AARI is the oldest and largest Russian research institute in the field of comprehensive studies of Arctic and Antarctica...

. He participated in numerous Arctic expeditions, including the ones on icebreakers Sibiryakov

Icebreaker Sibiryakov

The icebreaker Sibiryakov was a Soviet ship which was active in the Russian Arctic during the 1930s. She was built in 1909 in Glasgow and was originally the Newfoundland sealing steamer Bellaventure. After being purchased by Russia in 1916, she was renamed the Sibiryakov...

 (1932) and Chelyuskin

Chelyuskin steamship

SS Chelyuskin was a Soviet steamship reinforced to navigate through polar ice that became ice-bound in Arctic waters during navigation along the Northern Maritime Route from Murmansk to Vladivostok...

 and a drifting ice station North Pole-1

Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations

Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations are important contributors to exploration of the Arctic. The stations are named North Pole Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations are important contributors to exploration of the Arctic. The stations are named North Pole Soviet and...

 (1937-1938). In 1942-1948, Pyotr Shirshov was People's Commissar (later Minister) of the Soviet Maritime Fleet. In 1946-1953, he headed the Institute of Oceanology of the Soviet Academy of Sciences

Shirshov Institute of Oceanology

Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Moscow, is the largest institute for ocean and earth science research, in Russia, established in 1946.- Fleet :* RV Akademik Ioffe...

, which he had established himself. In 1946-1950, Pyotr Shirshov chaired the Pacific Ocean Science Committee.

Pyotr Shirshov authored numerous works dealing with his research on plankton

Plankton

Plankton are any drifting organisms that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. That is, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than phylogenetic or taxonomic classification...

 in polar regions. He is known to have proven the fallacy of the hypothesis that there is no life in high latitudes of the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

. Pyotr Shirshov was awarded three Orders of Lenin, four other orders, and several medals. A bay in the Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land

Franz Josef Land, Franz Joseph Land, or Francis Joseph's Land is an archipelago located in the far north of Russia. It is found in the Arctic Ocean north of Novaya Zemlya and east of Svalbard, and is administered by Arkhangelsk Oblast. Franz Josef Land consists of 191 ice-covered islands with a...

, an underwater range in the Bering Sea

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....

, and Shirshov Institute of Oceanology bear Pyotr Shirshov's name.