Creator, mentor, educator

It is well known that a lot in a person's life depends on the family. Natalia Petrovna was lucky: she was born into an intelligent family of a civil engineer. Her father, Pyotr Ivanovich, after graduating from the Kharkov Institute of Technology, was sent to the Urals, where she built the first blast furnaces of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine, participated in the construction of Uralmash in Sverdlovsk. Natalia Petrovna was born on August 26, 1939 in the Sverdlovsk region. After his father left for the front, the family moved and stayed in Kazakhstan. A great influence on the upbringing of children was exerted by mother Praskovya Ivanovna, an intelligent, kind, hardworking woman who loved music and had a beautiful voice. Romances performed by her often sounded in the house. In the future, all five children were held as worthy citizens of their country. The youngest daughter, Nina Petrovna, became a candidate of agricultural sciences, works at the Research Institute of Oncology in Tomsk. The son, Vladimir Petrovich, received several orders of Labor Glory. Natalia Petrovna's daughter, Irina, is a candidate of biological Sciences.

Natalia Petrovna, graduated from the Petropavlovsk Pedagogical Institute in 1964, has gone a long professional way from a laboratory assistant at the Department of Geography to a vice-rector and professor at the NKSU, where she has been working for 53 years. Most of the teachers of the Department of Geography and Ecology are its students of different graduation years. Professor Beletskaya N.P. is a student of Ovchinnikov G.D., a 1941 graduate of Leningrad State University, who worked for many years at our university as director of the Teachers' Institute, head of the department.

Natalia Petrovna, possessing organizational skills, having many years of experience in teaching geographical and environmental disciplines, headed the Department of "Physical Geography" for a long time. She managed to successfully organize several expeditions in the summer to study the relief and lakes not only of the North Kazakhstan Region, but also the southern half of the West Siberian Plain, the structure and ecological state of the Ishim Valley. The organization of field expeditions requires enormous efforts, since it is necessary to provide, in addition to the scientific plan, financial support, vehicles, accommodation and meals in the field. All this was on Natalia Petrovna's shoulder. Several expeditions were organized jointly with the Director of the Laboratory of Geomorphology and Neotectonics of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the SB Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Doctor of Geomorphological Sciences V.A. Nikolaev, who for many years provided great attention and assistance in the development of the department.

Beletskaya N.P. successfully defended her PhD thesis on the topic "Relief of the Petropavlovsk Priishimye and the history of its development in the Cenozoic" at the Geography Faculty of Moscow State University. As a result of N.P. Beletskaya's research, the valley network of the Petropavlovsk Priishimye was "aged" for 40 million years, which is based on data from the reconstruction of the buried relief of different geological stages of development. Many researchers have addressed the mystery of the origin of this amazing relief formed on the territory of the southern plains of Western Siberia and on the land of the globe. In the works of Natalia Petrovna, a new abrasive-accumulative hypothesis of its origin, the mechanism of formation of this relief, is proposed.

A doctoral dissertation "The genesis of the lake basins of the West Siberian Plain" was also prepared, but due to the circumstances, it was not submitted for defense. Natalia Petrovna summarized the results of the research in a summary work, conducted zoning of the plain area with an area of about 3 million square kilometers in frequency of occurrence and density of lake basins. The main result of the study can be considered the development of a genetic classification of lake basins of the West Siberian Plain, presented in an article in the journal "Geomorphology" of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Beletskaya N.P. developed projects and programs of scientific research of environmental content focused on practical use: the project "Technology Park "North" – 2000, "Concept of environmental education of the Republic of Kazakhstan" – 2002, the Program of environmental Protection of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2005-2007 (approved by the Prime Minister in December 2004), The concept of sustainable development of the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2015.  Grants were received by the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Program for the project "Restoration of forest-steppe natural landscape on degraded lands" (for Shakshakbayev school), and for the project "Conservation of biodiversity of lake ecosystems of Northern Kazakhstan", implemented from 2005 to 2008.

N.P. Beletskaya led the work on the topic "Integrated environmental studies of the territory and health of the population of North Kazakhstan and East Kazakhstan regions", in which a new approach to solving an important scientific problem was implemented. The study was based on a comparison of regions with different ecological situations, but with a very similar level of cancer incidence. The researchers proceeded from the idea that a whole complex of factors operates in the current situation. The study was conducted at the level of populations (groups of people) based on the processing of long-term statistical indicators. Among the most likely factors of morbidity are: endemic geochemical indicators, genotoxicity of drinking water, bad habits. The work on the topic was carried out from 2005 to 2010 with the grant support of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Natalia Petrovna is a co–author and editor of several monographs. In 2003, a collective monograph "The system of agriculture of the North Kazakhstan region" was published. Together with the scientists of Barnaul, a monograph "Aquatic ecosystems of Northern Kazakhstan" was published in 2011. Based on the results of studies in which Russian scientists from Barnaul and Tomsk took part, a monograph "The influence of external environmental factors on the oncological morbidity of the population of North Kazakhstan and East Kazakhstan regions" was published in 2013. In total, Natalia Beletskaya has published more than 200 scientific and methodological works. Currently, Natalia Petrovna continues to lead scientific research on the study of natural resources, lake ecosystems, assessment of environmental situations, including anthropogenic desertification of Northern Kazakhstan, ecological mapping, scientific justification and allocation of specially protected natural areas, preparation of recommendations for improving environmental management.

"Natalia Petrovna is distinguished by her warmth and kind attitude towards young teachers," recalls M.M. Taizhanova. "I arrived at the V. Pedagogical Institute after finishing graduate school and settled in a dormitory. I was given furniture: an iron bed, a table, a chair. One day, the head of the department, N.P. Beletskaya, came to see how the young teacher was settling in. When she saw the armored bed, the very next day she brought a wooden bed from her house, which I had been using for a long time, for me it was truly a royal gift. I remember another similar case. A young couple of graduates of the department worked at our department in the early 90s. They had a child. The salary is small, everything is on coupons, there is nowhere to wait for help. Once in the teaching room, the head of the family, S. Teslenok, told about family problems. Natalia Petrovna bought a receipt for sugar that day and, without hesitation, gave her monthly supply of sugar to the family of young teachers.

Natalia Petrovna 's work has been awarded with high awards: "Gold Medal named after P.P. Semenov-Tien Shanskyi Geographical Society of the USSR", medal "Veteran of Labor"; badges: "For achievements in the research work of students" (Ministry of Higher Education of the USSR), "Excellent Student of public Education of the Kazakh SSR", "Honorary Worker of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan"; jubilee medals: in honor of the 10th and 20th anniversary of the Republic of Kazakhstan, a large gold medal of the NKSU; 4 Honorary diplomas and 3 Thanks to the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Docent, cand. of Geogr. Sc. S.G. Vodopyanova

Professor of NKSU, cand. of Geogr. Sc., Phd M.M. Taizhanova