Vavilov and FIAN: a perspective from 2016

The 2016 celebration of the 125th anniversary of the birth of Academician S I Vavilov, the outstanding physicist of the last century, provides an opportunity to compare what is going on today at the Russian Academy of Sciences (reforms, new members election, etc.) to the days long ago that preceded the foundation of the P N Lebedev Physical Institute (FIAN). The role of S I Vavilov and his academician colleagues in fighting bureaucracy and bureaucrats to create real academic science in our country is examined in this short paper.