[«He always talked about something else…» Alexey Matveyevich Olovnikov and his unusual science.]

In this article, we celebrate the life and scientific contributions of the exceptional theoretical gerontologist Alexey Matveyevich Olovnikov (1936-2022), who is renowned for his visionary hypothesis regarding the role of telomeres in aging. He postulated that the ends of linear chromosomes cannot be completely replicated, which explains the limited potential of somatic cell divisions. He also predicted the presence of a specialized DNA polymerase that lengthens telomeres in germ, cancer, and stem cells. These and other aspects of telomere biology have been confirmed and are now the foundations of modern gerontology. Alexey proposed several hypotheses on aging, biorhythms, morphogenesis and evolution, all of which are striking and extraordinary, much like their author.