N. L. StaskevichDSc in Engineering, Professor, Head of the Department of Heat Engineering and Gas Supply of the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute (now SPbGASU) Nikolai Lukich Staskevich (1907–1992) fully felt all the hardships, hunger and need of besieged Leningrad. By that time, he had already graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Chemical Technology, and wrote a monograph on gas purification by deep cooling.
In the hardest blockade conditions, he applied all his energies and knowledge to the development of science: as chief engineer of the Gazteploproekt trust, he supervised the most important work on the production of thermoanthracite instead of foundry coke and artificial liquid and gaseous fuels instead of gasoline. In 1943, Nikolai Lukich was awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad".
In 1944, Nikolai Staskevich was appointed head of the construction of oil shale processing plants near the respective deposits. It became possible to turn gas shale rocks into combustible gas on the spot and transport it through pipelines to places of consumption. As a result of Staskevich's work in the post-war years, the apartments of Leningrad residents were gasified.
After the war, under his leadership, gas supply projects for Stalingrad, Tallinn, Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh and many other cities of the USSR were developed and implemented. In 1946, Nikolai Staskevich was awarded the medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
Since 1956, Nikolai Lukich, being the chief technologist of the SPI "Lengiproinzhproekt", begins to read a new course "Gas Supply" at the Department of Heating, Ventilation and Heat and Gas Supply of the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineering and, according to the confessions of his students, makes them fall in love with his discipline. A graduate student of those years, Galina Komina, recalls that the audiences in which Staskevich lectured were always crowded: even students of other specialties came to listen to the practitioner.
In the 1950s, Nikolai Lukich became an associate professor and PhD of sciences, and in 1962 received the academic title of professor. For twenty years, Staskevich headed the Department of Heat Engineering and Gas Supply. During the years of work at LISI, the professor was engaged in the creation of a regulatory framework for the gas supply security system, the development of a calculation base for gas-using and gas-regulating equipment. Under his supervision, 30 PhD theses were completed. He has published eight monographs and three handbooks on gas supply.
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