A leading researcher of Russian hydrogeology, the first head of the Department of Hydrogeology of the Leningrad Mining Institute, Pavel Ilyich Butov was born on June 3 (15), 1882 in Orel, in a large family of a railway machinist. After graduating from the Orel real school, Pavel Ilyich entered the St. Petersburg Mining Institute in 1901. For his participation in the student revolutionary movement, he was expelled from the institute for two years in 1904 by the decision of the Mining Institute's Council.