This paper gives a historic overview of the innovation activities in the former Soviet Union, including the Estonian SSR, in the direct chemical processing of organic matter concentrates of Estonian oil shale kukersite (kukersite) as well as other sapropelites. The overview sheds light on the laboratory experiments started in the 1950s and subsequent extensive, triple-shift work on a pilot scale on nitric acid, to produce individual dicarboxylic acids from succinic to sebacic acids, their dimethyl esters or mixtures in the 1980s.