The paper traces in stages the key trends and events in the history of the complex of scientific and educational areas which originated and developed in the Saratov Volga region largely due to the activities of V.I. Vernadsky’s students and followers. On the example of the most outstanding personalities, the influence of such personalities on features of the evolutionary dynamics of specific organizations, the city and the region is shown. Such an analysis allows us to see interregional interactions from a new perspective, the role of the region for the country, as well as to propose original scientific and educational projects for further study and popularization of V.I. Vernadsky’s heritage.

Brief information is given about several Russian microbiologists--naturalists whose names are found on the pages of V.I. Vernadsky’s diaries. Despite the variety of topics, their works always found hot reaction of V.I. Vernadsky. The knowledge of these materials helps one to understand the evolution of the scientists’ ideas, trends of the development of science.

Brief information is given about the samples of vernadite from the mineralogical collection of the Earth Science Museum, which were passed for display at the exhibition organized for the anniversary of V.I. Vernadsky. The history of the discovery and studying of vernadite and features of its chemism, modern concepts of its crystal structure, genesis as well as some practical applications are addressed. Attribution of the exhibition samples as vernadites is questionable due to the lack of information about their instrumental diagnostics.

The paper is devoted to the influence of outstanding Russian scientists Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev and Vasily Vasilyevich Dokuchaev on the formation of the views of their brilliant student Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, his formation as a great Russian thinker and naturalist on a planetary scale, as well as their further creative interaction.

This article is about the world’s only cabinet-museum of the great world scientist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. The museum celebrates its sixtieth anniversary in 2023, the year of the 160th anniversary of the scientist. The museum contains items which accompanied V.I. Vernadsky and his wife Natalia Egorovna (nee Staritskaya) from the moment of their wedding to his last days. There are many photos and portraits of relatives and friends of the Vernadsky family on the walls. Vernadsky’s library had about 7,000 books, some of which are now in the museum. The museum has many books by V.I. Vernadsky himself, published during his lifetime and in recent years. The sphere of interests of the great scientist was huge. The exposition and the library of the museum tell in detail about the creative path of the scientist. Having started as a mineralogist, V.I. Vernadsky created physical (energetical) crystallography, genetic mineralogy. He is the creator of radiogeology. His studies of living matter, comparison of its properties and composition with those of mineral matter allowed the scientist to create a new science –biogeochemistry. In his scientific activity, V.I. Vernadsky paid much attention to the development of his doctrine of the biosphere, the transition of the biosphere into the noösphere. Vernadsky was a significant public and political figure of pre-revolutionary Russia. One can learn about all this from the museum’s exposition and from the story of the curator of the museum.

As part of MSU’s Strategic Development Programme, the Youth Museum initiative is currently under development as a mobile-network project. The project consists of a system of interacting nodes, comprising a central site on the MSU campus and a network of regional subdivisions. The proposal suggests the use of mobile field museum exhibitions as an effective mechanism of interaction. In recent years, the aforementioned system was experimentally tested within the “Flotilla of Floating Universities” scientific and educational expedition. This project comprises a set of interrelated research, educational, training, artistic, and other projects. The direct and active involvement of students and schoolchildren led to the development of creative methods for the traveling exhibitions «Ancient Lukomorye» and «Living Matter in Geospheres», as well as to the methods of joint empirical and information gathering for the development of central and regional «Youth Museum» clusters. Materials were collected to create pilot versions of exhibitions, educational collections and the launch of interactive platforms at Tambov State Technical University: «Cretaceous Beach» («Palaeoecological Sandbox»), «Page of the Stone Chronicle» («Dissecting Table of a Beginner Palaeoecologist»), and others. These exhibitions are designed to ensure that they can be used effectively in educational and outreach activities on a wide range of topics. Students and schoolchildren will have the opportunity to conduct small-scale individual and collaborative research projects of varying levels of complexity using the platform format.

A popular science film “Brotherhood of Scientific Creativity. Floating University named after Vladimir Vernadsky” was shot to the 160^th anniversary of the birth of Academician V.I. Vernadsky. Work on the film was carried out during 2022–2023 as part of the activities of the scientific and educational expedition «Floating Universities Flotilla» (the field work regions being the Middle and Lower Volga river, Don river, Caspian sea). It includes the original projects “Academician Vernadsky’s Floating University” and “Floating mobile-network museum center”. The concept of the project basically provides for interdisciplinary research on a wide range of problems of the interaction of geospheres and the evolution of geoecosystems, which is being implemented by creative teams of scientists from various fields and students with the active involvement of the local population in interactive museum practices. According to the main message of the film, it is in such an environment of “scientific creativity”, in the format of field natural sciences, that the development of the ideological heritage of V.I. Vernadsky on the principles of the “Priyutinsky Brotherhood” and maturation of the “new Vernadskies” from novice researchers. The original system of scenario and producer’s decisions included the contrast of images «academician–student», a series of episodes of actual field research (the study of geological sections, the phenomenon of lithophagy, natural and anthropogenic objects) with the implicit inclusion of the “young Vernadsky” in the process (the character is an actor) and subsequent the culminating meeting of the “two Vernadskies” (montage) against the background of the Volga river – a symbolic handover of the baton of “scientific creativity” to a new generation.