As a child I loved books of travel and adventure; I was ever in search of the mysterious in science and felt a strong attraction to far-away lands.

I might have become a book-worm, an arm-chair adventurer, had it not been for the stern realities of life. My childhood ended during the Civil War in the south of the Ukraine. Having inherited from my father a robust physique, I could not stay at home at a time when my country was in danger.

I joined a mechanized company of the Sixth Army, and spent part of the Civil War on the coasts of the Azov and Black seas until I received a severe concussion from a shell fired from a British gun-boat. For a short time I lost my power of speech. Once again I returned to my books.

Soon after the end of the Civil War I went to Leningrad (the name of St. Petersburg in 1924-1991- comment of the site author), where I took a correspondence course in a navigation school and worked as a lorry-driver's mate.

It was then that I read an article by Academician P. P. Sushkin, our eminent palaeontologist, published in a 1922 issue of Priroda (Nature - comment of the site author), in which he described fossilized animals unearthed in a deposit of the Permian formation along the River North Dvina, near the town of Kotlas. With great scientific acumen he described a large river which had flowed there two million centuries ago, resurrected a world of strange animals which dwelt on its banks, unveiled before the reader a picture of the earth's past, posed a host of thrilling problems and scientific riddles.

I wrote to the palaeontologist, telling him about my newly-awakened interest in his subject and, as a result, he took a kindly interest in me, a raw youth groping for his road in life: he invited me to visit him, gave me books to read, and let me have the run of his museum, where under his guidance I began to delve into the history of the Earth and of life.

On graduating at the navigation school, I was sent first to the Far East, then to the Caspian Sea to serve my time as an apprentice seaman. But my thirst for knowledge brought me hack to Leningrad, where I entered the University. After my winter studies I would leave my text-books and sail during the summer navigation season. This was an ordinary thing in those days: sailors, railwaymen, building workers were all combining work with study; the whole country was getting educated.

For a long time I hesitated between two professions: sea and science. Once, during my service on the Caspian, I was returning to Baku by motor boat. The day was unusually serene and sultry; the sea was a sheet of opaque greyish-green glass; a fiery sun hung in the heavens. I was lying in the boat's prow and peering into the -depths: the sunlight reached deep into the water, and in some places I could see the bottom at a depth of about 30 feet.

Suddenly I realized that I was looking down at the ruins of an inaccessible submerged town, at walls and towers, which slowly receded under the boat's keel. I already began to make out the elusive outline of streets and houses when the surface of the sea was ruffled by a breath of wind, and the vision vanished.

It left so strong an impression, however, that I was irresistibly drawn towards science, seized with the ardent desire of knowing the Earth's history, the causes of change and development.

In Baku I received a telegram from Academician Sushkin inviting me to accept a position on the staff of the Academy of Science - a very modest one, to be sure, that of technical assistant to a scientific laboratory worker. I made my decision, and linked my life with science.

In winter I worked in the laboratory, in summer I travelled all over the Soviet Union in the hunt for fossilized animals. I was a successful hunter and made a number of interesting discoveries in the forests and swamps of the North, in the murky silence of ancient mines in the Urals, in the hot steppes and mountains of Central Asia.

When my young days came to an end, I already had an eventful life behind me. My sense of duty before my country was sharpened in those years by the titanic struggle of the Soviet people to create an advanced industry. An important part in this enterprise fell to geology. I decided to take up the study of it, and when I finished the Leningrad College of Mines, I went on geological expeditions, chiefly in Siberia, Yakutia, and the Far East.

It was hard work, but a remarkably sound school of life. Besides, although the Cambrian deposits along the River Aldan, the gneiss of Eastern Siberia, the Mesozoic strata of the Far East, and the collieries and gold mines were a world apart from the study of the continents of the Age of Aerogeaes and Amphibians and the life that had once existed on them - this was what I hoped to devote myself to - my knowledge became wider and my experience as a traveller served me in good stead in later life.

By the end of the first five-year plan Soviet geology had made great strides in studying the land's natural resources, and many thousands of geologists had been trained. I went back to my palaeontology and headed a laboratory which studied the most ancient of animals and the deposits of the continents of the Palaeozoic era, the Earth's infancy. Academician Sushkin, my teacher, had died, leaving me, who lacked his talent and his knowledge, to go on with his work.

There now ensued a long period of sedentary work; my nomadic days were over. Naturally, I could not reconcile myself at once to this, and yearned to roam again. I thought I might find an outlet for this craving in writing - not just another scientific article, but a story about the romance of active scientific exploration, about man's rigorous struggle with Nature.

Time and again I sat down to write some sort of traveller's notes. A lot of paper went into the waste-basket, but still my sketches did not satisfy me: the words I chose seemed inadequate, the descriptions of Nature colourless. My disappointment in my ability to write made me give up all further effort in this field. My scientific work also stood in the way, for I found it difficult to view my heroes and their activities from afar, to see them with the eyes of an artist, and, of course, I lacked the time for deep and unhurried thinking.

I repeated my attempt much later, during the Great Patriotic War (the part of World War II when the Soviet Union fought against the Fascist Germany - comment of the site author), after a serious illness had almost incapacitated me. During the long period of convalescence I was tortured by my inability to do anything for my country in those difficult times. Finally I decided that I would be "doing my bit" if I managed to tell people about the secrets of the sea, about the nature of our vast country, about the dreams of our wonderful people - seamen, travellers, scientists - and their marvellous contributions to science.

My first stories were printed in 1944 and were well received by the public. This encouraged me to go on with my literary work even when I regained my health and returned to my scientific duties. I published more stories (some of which appear below) in 1945-48. In 1949 my largest work came out, "On the Brink of the Inhabited World", a historical novel about ancient Egypt and Greece; in 1953 it was followed by another historical book, "The Travels of Baurjed".

My interest in far-away countries, which goes back to my childhood dreams, is reflected, I think, in all my stories. These countries may or may not have a scientifically substantiated history; sometimes I turn to the mysterious depths of time out of mind. My "far-away countries" are also new roads still to be trodden; only a few milestones are visible as they vanish into the dim vistas of the future. To try to lift the curtain of mystery over these roads, to speak of scientific achievements yet to come as of realities, and in this way to lead the reader to the most advanced outposts of science - such are the tasks of science-fiction, as I see them. But they do not exhaust the aims of Soviet science-fiction: its philosophy is to serve the development of the imaginative and creative faculty of our people as an asset in the study of social life; and its chief aim is to search for the new, and through this search to gain an insight into the future.

I am fully aware that my descriptive style has its faults, that my heroes are often too much alike, that the psychological line is inadequately developed - these are shortcomings which, I hope, will not appear in my future work.

But, as before, the subject of my writings will be scientific research, discovery, travel. I intend to write about certain events in the history of my country and of other lands, about our prehistoric forefathers, about the life of colonial peoples in Asia and Africa.