Nikolay Zelinsky
Nikolay Dimitrievich Zelinsky (Russian: Николай Дмитриевич Зелинский; 6 February n.s. [O. S. 25 January], 1861 – 31 July 1953) was a Russian and Soviet chemist, an academician of the Academy of Sciences of USSR (1929). Zelinsky studied at the University of Odessa and at the universities of Leipzig and Göttingen in Germany. Zelinsky was one of the founders of theory on organic catalysis. He was the inventor of the first effective filtering activated charcoal gas mask in the world (1915). Life. Zelinsky studied at a middle school in Tiraspol, then in Richelieu gymnasium and in Novorossiya University in Odessa , and abroad at the University of Leipzig and University of Göttingen with Victor Meyer. He received his master and his Ph.D from Novorossiya University in 1888 and 1891. He was appointed professor at the University of Moscow in 1893, where worked till his retirement with the exceptions of the years between 1911 and 1917. His main research area was the chemistry of cyclic hydrocarbons. He was the president of the Moscow Society of Naturalists. Recognition. The crater Zelinskiy on the Moon is named in his honor. In 2001, the Central Bank of Transnistria minted a silver coin honoring this  native of today's Transnistria, as part of a series of memorable coins called "The Outstanding People of Pridnestrovie". The Zelinskiy Institute of Organic Chemistry of Russian Academy of Sciences is named after him.