On November 29,  scientific conference "Problems of strength, dynamics, service life and optimization" was opened at  Lobachevsky University. The conference is dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Professor Victor Malkov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Honored Scientist of the RSFSR, who for many years headed the Department Elasticity and Plasticity Theory at the UNN Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty. Conference participants were welcomed by Professor Leonid Igumnov, Head of the UNN Department of Numerical Modeling of Physical and Mechanical Processes and Professor Dmitry Tarlakovsky,  Chairman of the Section of Physics of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. In the course of three days, scientists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhni Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Saratov and Sarov presented dozens of papers on various topics of current interest and exchanged their ideas.