Vladimir Porfiriev - Early Years

Early Years

Vladimir Porfiryev was born to the family of the Zemstvo demographer. He graduated from 1st Vyatka Gymnasium in 1918 and then worked for the local demographic bureau. In 1919 Porfiriev as a voluntarily joined the Red Army and took part in the Russian Civil War. After demobilisation he studied at Perm University and then transferred to the Exploration Faculty of the Petrograd Mining Institute, where he graduated in 1926.

In 1924, while still a student, he started his geological and research career in the State Geological Committee, where he first worked in their West Siberia Section and then for Petroleum one (now VNIGRI). From 1929 to 1938 he worked for as a geologist and head of the Central Asia Section at All-Union Petroleum Research Geoexploration Institute (VNIGRI), and a foreman for Central oblasts of Russian SFSR. Without defending a thesis he received a PhD and professor degree in 1937. The next year he defended a Doctor of Science dissertation in Geology and Mineralogy titled "Formation conditions of the Central Asia oil fields". He then headed studies on hydrocarbon potential evaluation at the Institute of Geological Sciences at Kiev State University.

At the beginning of World War II he was called up for military service in the Red Army but soon was demobilized and sent to the Geological Institute at the Academic Sciences University in Tashkent, where he worked as senior researcher until 1944. Then he returned to Kiev and headed the Petroleum Department at the Institute of Geological Sciences.