After the main events had wrapped up in Moscow, some of the guests decided to make a trip to Kazan.

They first visited the History Museum and the Geological Museum. Ludovic Ferrière, Curator of the rock collection at Vienna Museum of Natural History, had high praise for the KFU’s storage units, “The KFU museum’s collection has very rare and interesting exhibits. As a co-curator of the meteorite collection, I would like to keep in touch with your excellent museum.”

Before the museum tour, the guests went to see the Karla impact crater in Buinsk District, Tatarstan. One of the delegation members, Richard B. Hoover, former head of NASA Astrobiology Group, showed eagerness to cooperate with KFU in his area of expertise.

Dilyara Kuzina, Research Associate at the KFU Paleoclimatology, Paleocology and Paleomagnetism Lab, said that in Moscow she met with Sergey Bulat, Head of Crioastrobiology Lab at Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, who promised to send specimens of space dust from the Antarctic to KFU for research.

Marina Frontasyeva, Head of Sector for Neutron Activation Analysis and Applied Research, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, shared her impressions from KFU, “I was amazed by labs of the Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies. I think that cooperation between the Joint Institute and Kazan University must be widened to involve the Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies. This pertains both to research and education.”

KFU and JINR already have one joint department at the KFU Institute of Physics.