OREANDA-NEWS. Laureate of the most prestigious Russian non-governmental award, the Demidov Award 2012 awarded to acknowledge the contribution to science, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Evgeny Primakov has decided to donate his monetary prize to equip three orphanages in the Sverdlovsk region with computers.

Traditionally, Demidov Awards were granted to three outstanding scientists in Yekaterinburg on the Day of Science, February 8. Sverdlovsk Governor Evgeny Kuivashev presented the awards.

Academician Evgeny Avronin won the physics prize, and Ilya Moiseyev was the winner in the chemistry nomination. The Demidov Award Committee decided that Evgeny Primakov made the biggest contribution to the development of international relations. The monetary prize was one million rubles.

The money was transferred to the bank account of the CCI of Russia Charity Fund “Homeless Children’s Assistance Center”. The fund will buy computers for the Karpinsky Gagarin Orphanage, the 1st Pervouralsk Orphanage and the 5th Nizhny Tagil Orphanage.

The Demidov Award was established in 1831 by Urals industrialist and benefactor Pavel Nikolayevich Demidov; it was awarded until 1866. The tradition resumed in 1993 at the initiative of the Urals branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The contemporary Demidov Award (presented in February 2013) is presented for the 20th time since the award restoration. The Demidov Award was established almost 70 years before the Nobel Prize; it was awarded 34 times in the 19th century. Russians known to the entire world received the award, among them surgeon Nikolay Pirogov, traveler, academician Ferdinand Frangel, seafarer Ivan Kruzenshtern and many others. The contemporary Demidov Award has been awarded for the 20th time. Over this period it has grown by 15 times to one million rubles. A book with scientific biographies and portraits of all the 70 winners was published by the 20th anniversary of the restoration of the Demidov Award.