FROM THE EDITOR

This RB issue is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Nikolay Vasilyev, a member of the Scientific Council of RIAP and the leader of the Tunguska studies in the former USSR and present-day CIS. He saddled himself with the leadership of the Interdisciplinary Independent Tunguska Expedition (IITE) in its early days—as far back as the late 1950's. Since that time this informal scientific research institute has been conducting the main research work in this field. Here the expression "saddled himself" is very apt. Even though the IITE has been a very viable team, quite capable of self-organization, the energy and human wisdom of Dr. Vasilyev was needed to overcome many large and small, external and internal problems that not infrequently confronted the Expedition. Taking into consideration the lack of the usual controls (first of all, financial ones), one cannot overestimate the role of Nikolay Vasilyev's personal authority in the history of the IITE. Of course, he was not alone in this work—and two colleagues of his—Dr. Gennadiy Plekhanov and Dr. Victor Zhuravlev—are sharing their memories of Nikolay Vasilyev with RB readers on pages 11–12. We are also thankful to the well-known Russian scholar Dr. V. P. Kaznacheev, member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, for his obituary (p. 10). Nikolay Vasilyev was not only a distinguished specialist in the Tunguska problem, but an outstanding physician, a key figure in the field of immunology as well. It is easy to understand that only an extremely talented and hard-working man could so successfully combine these two spheres of activity. There are only twenty-four hours in any day, after all...

In recent times anomalistics lost several well-known researchers, which has seriously hurt it. People are the main component of any research community and, apart from purely human sorrow evoked by their passing, there is a definite impression that our field of study was impoverished in its creative potential. ...The more so that talent in anomalistics is even more important than in normal science: what the latter can do with the help of its technical and financial resources, the former must do with the help of its brain power.

Not long ago there departed from this life Igor Lissevich (a noted Orientalist and one of few Russian scholars who deeply understood the real importance of the problem of paleovisits), Johannes Fiebag (again one of few Western scientists, about whom one could say the same), Valeriy Sanarov (author of the first Soviet academical publication dealing with the problem of contact with UFO occupants), Alexander Kuzovkin (one of the most serious Russian ufologists), and Desmond Leslie (a founding father of "historical ufology", whose book Flying Saucers Have Landed, published in 1953, though not devoid of shortcomings, has played its own essential part in the development of our research field).

These people have not done everything that they planned, and not everything that they have done has become known to readers. In this RB issue we publish Nikolay Vasilyev's paper "The Cosmic Sword" (pp. 2–9). In fact, this is the Introduction to his unfinished book that was regarded as the "final report" on the Tunguska investigations conducted in the 20th century. Now Dr. Tatiana Kolyada, the widow of Nikolay Vasilyev, is preparing the manuscript of this work for publication. Hopefully, the book will soon appear in print and will certainly be read with much attention by scientists, anomalists, and the general public. It is worthy of reading indeed.

— Vladimir V. Rubtsov

To download RB, Vol. 7, No. 1, containing this paper, please click here:
http://www.geocities.com/riap777/EPRB-71.pdf (342 KB)

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