Michael Trachtengerts

I was born in 1937. In 1961 I graduated from Moscow power institute as engineer in power plants. Later I had work to develop some equipment for power devices, taught physics in an institute, had postgraduate education and in 1968 got Ph.D. in thermodynamics. Now I have a position as a leading researcher in an institute in the Russian academy of sciences.

At the same time I have steady interest in nature. I remember fishing from childhood and hunting from the age, when I could apply for a rifle license. I loved long, for a month or longer, travels which now called as extreme in inhabited taiga areas, usually by kayaks (see the list of travels). Nature photographing is my favorite vocation.

In 70-th I had got acquainted with a problem of "intermediate link" in human origin. Then I came to the conclusion that some kinds of these "intermediate links" could be kept in the remote areas till now under favorable conditions. The close acquaintance with J.-M. Koffmann, D.Yu.Bayanov and other researchers, who were the followers of B.F.Porshnev, has strengthened this opinion. Short film by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin showed me that materials for scientific study of these creatures also appeared. I became an active member of the Russian society of cryptozoologists and was elected as vice-chairman.

I was participant and chief in expeditions to some areas were presence of relic hominoids was assumed. I put to public attention to such indisputable facts of hominoid existence as alive essence that was caught in the Saratov region, group supervision of adult hominoid with his child in vicinity of Kargopol in Arkhangelsk region, hominoid figure sketch from Kostroma area, and also developing of computer database about hominoids on the USSR territory. But the main success for me in this field is the reconstruction of an unknown primate that lives in Himalayas. It was made on the basis of photo snapshots received by A.Tishkov in 1991.

I am the convinced supporter of inviolent methods in hominoid research.