Valentin Vydrin

Valentin Feodosyevich Vydrin (also spelled Vydrine; Russian: Валентин Феодосьевич Выдрин; born February 6, 1961, Belogorka, Leningrad Oblast) is a Russian Africanist. Until 2011, he was the head of the Department of Ethnography of African Peoples of the Kunstkamera, Professor, Doctor of Philology. He is a Graduate of the Department of African Studies of the Faculty of Eastern Studies of the Saint Petersburg State University, where he was later a lecturer. He is an author of numerous scientific works, published in Russian, French, and English, on the topic of Mande languages, including dictionaries and treatises on grammatical features.

Since 2010, he has been lecturing in France as a professor of Mande languages at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales in Paris.

His daughter, Alexandra Vydrina (1988–2021), was also a linguist.

Works