BELYAKOV

RUSSIA (see also List of Individuals)

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29.7.1894 Omsk/RU - 15.7.1992 Moscow/RU

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Aleksandr Alekseevich Belyakov studied until 1916 hydraulic engineering at Saint Petersburg Institute of Transportation Engineers and then had to join World War I. He continued his education from 1920 to graduate from the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers. In 1924, while working for the Dnieper River project, he joined the Dneprostroi design organization. He then devoted his entire career to activities in hydropower development. From 1927, he was involved in the Dneprovsk hydropower plant then directed by Boris Evgenevich Vedeneev (1885-1946). He there was promoted to chief engineer and thus took part in an engineering project where some 60,000 collaborators were active in 1934. In 1935, Belyakov moved to the Kama hydropower plant close to Volga River as an assistant manager, where he contributed to its design, constructional organization and equipment management. In 1940 Belyakov was transferred to Moscow to support the Hydro-electricity Department of the Energy Ministry and there remained for another 19 years, at the end as assistant manager. In 1956, he was elected Member of the USSR Academy of Construction and Architecture. Finally, from 1959 to 1978, he was the vice-president and the scientific councilor of the USSR Ministry of Power and Electrification MINENERGO.

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Belyakov was a thorough hydraulic engineer who had seen problems from all stages of the profession. He was equally effective in design and execution of these plants. For example, he proposed horizontal units for the spillways of the Kama Dam, or he inserted self-scouring removal of large earth volumes at the Pale Lake or the Perepad Dam in Tadzhikistan. Belyakov was in addition a consultant for a number of Soviet prestige dams, including the Nurek, the Bratsk, the Krasnoyarsk and the Ust-Ilim Dams. He was a recipient of numerous honorary titles, orders and prizes. He was a modest and original personality who was ahead of time, searching thereby for novel solutions of non-standard type and then taking unwarranted risks.

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_{Anonymous (1964). A.A. Belyakov. Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel'stvo 34(7): 57 (in Russian). P Anonymous (1992). Aleksandr Alekseevich Belyakov. Hydrotechnical Construction 26(8): 547. Belyakov, A.A. (1945). Prospects for hydropower construction for the next few years. Moscow. Belyakov, A.A. (1960). Basic trends in implementation of comprehensive electrification. Moscow.}

_{Belyakov, A.A. (1995). Water transport and power network of the Russian Federation. Hydrotechnical Construction 29(5): 307-312.}

_{Schulz, H.E., Taylor, S.S., eds. (1962). A.A. Belyakov. Who's who in the USSR: 101. Montreal.}