Aleksander K KonopatskiiALEKSANDER K. KONOPATSKII was born in 1951 in Tambovka County, Amur Province, USSR. After graduating from Suvorov's Military Boarding School in Ussuriisk (Maritime Province), he met Aleksei P. Okladnikov in 1969. Konopatskii became a cadet at the Novsibirsk Military-Political Academy but dropped out in 1972 and joined the Institute of History, Philology and Philosophy, Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. After that, he closely associated with Okladnikov, assisting in fieldwork, travel and the preparation of scientific reports. In 1974, Konopatskii graduated in History (including archaeology) from Kemerovo State University. Later that decade, he studied prehistoric sites on the shore of Lake Baikal in Siberia, and gained the Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.-equivalent) degree in 1979; in the 1980s - early 1990s, he excavated ancient sites in the lower course of the Amur River (Russian Far East). Since 1998, Konopatskii has been an Assistant Professor of the Novosibirsk General Military Academy, where he teaches humanities. Read More Read Less