Vassili Samarsky-Bykhovets

[2][3] Samarsky-Bykhovets was born in a noble family in the Tomsk Governorate, located in the Asian part of Russia east of the Ural Mountains.

While Chief of Staff, he began teaching at Saint Petersburg Mining Institute and eventually became a member of the scientific council there.

Gustav Rose in 1839 described a new mineral in those samples and named it uranotantalum believing that its composition is dominated by the chemical element tantalum.

In 1846–47, his brother and colleague-mineralogist Heinrich Rose found the major component of the mineral to be niobium and suggested altering the name to avoid confusion.

The newly chosen name samarskite acknowledged the role of Samarsky-Bykhovets in granting access to the mineral samples.