Our Mother. To mark the centenary of the birth of Gulsyuma Khusyainovna Nuraeva (Urusova) (July 15, 1920 – October 14, 2008)

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the oldest member of Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and her biography. She devoted her life to the service of science and preservation of collection of osteology department in theriology laboratory. With her own hands she boiled, cleaned and prepared countless exhibit items for storing, expert examination and displaying in the museum. Skillfully reuniting bone fragments found by paleontologists, she assembled numerous skeletal elements and even whole skulls of fossil animals. She was making plaster models from the most precious pieces, so they could be used as emergency copies or sent to the scientists from other institutes and museums in different cities and countries. Many researchers based their scientific articles and monographs on the samples made by G.Kh. Nuraeva. In March 1971 together with the members of the Laboratory of mammals she took part in preparations for the First conference on mammoths and mammoth fauna and in organizing of the exhibition. She also helped in ciphering, packaging and shipping the exhibits for the International hunting exhibit in Budapest (Hungary) in Autumn 1971 and preparing exhibits for “World of a mammoth” exhibition in Japan in 1981 and 1987. She restored a skull and the horns of an Irish elk Megaloceros giganteus, a skeleton of a southern mammoth Archidiscodon meridionalis, the skulls of fossilized bears Ursus deningeri, Ursus spelaeus kudarensis, elements of a skeleton of hoofed animals such as wild ox Bos primigenius and Stenon zebra Equus stenonis, not counting others valuable parts. She took a big part in writing a monograph «Baby mammoths Mammuthus primigenius». G.Kh. Nuraeva was a hard-working person and loved her job. Thanks to that she made an invaluable contribution to increasing of the Zoological Institute collection. Everyone who got to work beside her noted her nimble fingers and her big heart. We will always remember her with fondness and gratitude.