Dear colleagues and friends! This conference is devoted to the memory of Vladimir Mikhaylovich Alexeyev, professor of the Moscow State University, who untimely passed away in 1980.

Vladimir Mikhaylovich was one of the lecturers at Katsiveli Mathematical School in 1971. Such schools (and conferences) were regularly conducted by the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine since 1963. This regularity was broken because of certain political changes in the former Republics of the USSR. I would like to express my hope that our meeting in Crimea is a step towards restoring Crimean mathematical schools and conferences.

The organizers of the present conference suggested that I give a talk today, on the first day of our work here, and tell you what I recall about Vladimir Mikhaylovich Alexeyev. I am grateful to the Organizational Committee for the invitation to participate in the conference and for the honor to present my recollections of V. M. Alexeyev, a brilliant mathematician and personality.

V. M. Alexeyev was born on June 17, 1932. His father comes from a well known family of Russian merchants, the Alexeyev family, who gave the world K. S. Stanislavsky, a famous reformer of theatrical art. While in the ninth grade, Volodya Alexeyev started attending Math Club meetings at the Moscow State University, and in the next year he was honored with the first prize at Moscow Mathematical Olympiad for high school students.