«...Inextinguishable spark of love for science appeared in me during the anniversary of the Academy...» (The memories of P.V. Ivanov - young participant of the 200th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

The paper is devoted to one of the iconic pages in the history of academic science - the 200th anniversary of the USSR Academy of Sciences. A broad program of the «science holiday» on an international scale with the invitation of foreign scientists, pointed to the scientific and political significance of the event, both to raise the prestige of the Academy of Sciences, and to demonstrate to the international community the loyalty of the scientific elite to the new government. Researchers repeatedly turned to the analysis of this event and stressed its importance. However, on the eve of the next anniversary, it is interesting to show this event from an unofficial position, attracting sources of personal origin. The paper focuses on the unpublished memoirs of Pavel Vladimirovich Ivanov (1906-1990), scientist-teacher, doctor of pedagogical sciences, professor, honored teacher of the Karelian ASSR. In 1925 he as a young local historian from the city of Soligalich of the Kostroma province became a participant of the academic celebrations. The impressions of this event predetermined his future destiny and choice of profession. P.V. Ivanov having traveled from a pupil of a rural school, keen on local lore studies, to a schoolteacher, and then a university professor, laid down in his students - future teachers - the idea to raise the pupils’ interest, love and desire for young naturalists’, local lore, scientific and research work.