Klavdiâ Barkhatova

Biography

Klavdiâ Barkhatova came into the world in November 1917 in Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk Oblast. Her father, Alexander Barkhatov, was a well-known Bolshevik. One account says he was sent to Nizhnyaya Salda as part of the Soviet collectivization drive, so Klavdiâ spent her childhood there. After finishing high school, she went to Ural State University and earned her degree in August 1941. She stayed on at the university as an assistant, and by 1948 she had become an assistant professor. While teaching, she kept studying, defending her thesis in 1949 and later working toward a doctorate at Moscow State University. From 1951 to 1953, she led the department of science and mathematics at Ural State. She joined the International Astronomical Union, where she helped organize a committee focused on star clusters and associations. In the late 1950s, she pushed for building observatories at Ural State, which opened its first in 1957. She was the main force behind the Kourovka Astronomical Observatory in the town of Kourovka. When it was completed in 1965, she became its first director. The observatory was later renamed the K.A. Barkhatova Kourovka Astronomical Observatory in her honor. A minor planet, 5781 Barkhatova, also carries her name. The Academic Council of the Faculty of Physics at Ural State University gives a scholarship named after her. Barkhatova died in 1990 and was buried at Shirokorechenskoye cemetery in Yekaterinburg.