Who owned the first metallurgical plants in Russia? and got the best answer

Answer from Condorita[guru]
Demidov
According to Akinfiy Demidov’s will, his entire “empire” was to go to his beloved son Nikita. However, as a result of long family proceedings (even Empress Elizaveta Petrovna herself participated in them), the entire inheritance was divided between three brothers - Prokofy, Grigory and Nikita. The latter received only the Nizhny Tagil part of the inheritance, which included six Ural factories. By the end of Nikita Demidov’s life, the number of enterprises he owned increased to nine. Moreover, in terms of production size, they surpassed all the factories that belonged to his father in the mid-18th century.
Nikita undoubtedly inherited from his father the talent of a manager and industrialist, as well as extreme cruelty towards those who forged this wealth for him. His tough character became famous throughout Russia. Thus, the peasants of the village of Rusanovo, Tula province, having learned that Nikita Demidov had bought them, rebelled, refusing to pass to the new owner. A military detachment was sent to pacify the peasants - as a result of the clash, more than 60 people died.
Nikita Demidov no longer lives in the Urals, near his factories. He has the Petrovskoye estate near Moscow, luxurious houses in Moscow - one on Myasnitskaya (on the site of the current post office), the other on Voznesenskaya Street Nemetskaya Sloboda, on Yauza - Slobodskaya House (now Radio Street, 10). He was well known in Moscow. True, the house took so long to build (from 1762 to the end of the 1770s) that during this time the magnificent Baroque gave way to strict classicism. And the building, built in the Baroque style, no longer corresponded to enlightened taste and seemed somewhat old-fashioned. And yet the house was so good that M. F. Kazakov included it in his album “Particular buildings of Moscow.” The imagination of Muscovites was struck not only by the house, but also by the magnificent garden with a grotto, figured ponds, decorative fences cast at Demidov factories, and greenhouses.
Unlike his brother Prokofy, who could not stand titled nobility, Nikita Akinfievich always strived to be recognized among high-ranking people. Perhaps, in this way, throughout his life he overcame the complex of his not entirely “pure”, humble origin. But they say that it constantly made itself felt. The outstanding Russian scientist-encyclopedist A. T. Bolotov, noting the cordiality and curiosity of the “glorious rich man”, in whose Moscow house he saw plenty of “such rare things as he had never seen before,” also notes that “with all his enormous wealth and celebrities" Demidov is, in essence, a simpleton, and through his gold one can see "all the rudeness of his vile nature."

b) 1613

In 1613 A Zemsky Sobor was held in Moscow, at which the question of choosing a new Russian Tsar was raised. The Polish prince Vladislav, the son of the Swedish king Karl-Philip, the son of False Dmitry 2 and Marina Mnishek Ivan, as well as representatives of the largest boyar families were proposed as candidates for the Russian throne.

On February 21, the cathedral chose Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the 16-year-old great-nephew of Ivan the Terrible’s first wife, Anastasia Romanova.

2. During the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich (1613 -1645):

a) emergency taxes were introduced - five-dollar money

Zemsky Sobors were primarily concerned with finding funds to replenish the treasury and with foreign relations. In addition to increasing direct land taxes, the government, with the consent of the councils, several times collected emergency taxes, the so-called five-point money. For the period from 1613 to 1619. they gathered seven times, and twice more during the Smolensk War.

c) the period for searching fugitives has been increased to 10 years.

The state took the path of assigning peasants to their owners. In 1619 A five-year period was again announced, and in 1637. - nine-year investigation of fugitives. In 1642 A decree was again issued on a ten-year period for the search for fugitives and a fifteen-year period for the search for peasants who were forcibly removed.

d) the first handwritten newspaper “Chimes” appears.

The newspaper began publishing in Moscow in 1621 to inform Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich and the Boyar Duma, although individual issues appeared as early as June 1600, and continued to be published under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The newspaper was handwritten and prepared by the clerks of the Ambassadorial Prikaz especially for Alexei Mikhailovich. The source of information from abroad was foreign newspapers, letters from Russian people abroad, ambassadors' reports (“article lists”), news within the country came from various orders.

3. What are the conditions of the Stolbovo Peace Treaty of 1617? With Sweden?

c) Sweden held all the occupied lands except Novgorod.

After several military clashes, and then negotiations, the Stolbovo Peace Treaty was concluded in 1617 (in the village of Stolbovo, near Tikhvin). Sweden returned the Novgorod land to Russia, but retained the Baltic coast and received monetary compensation.

4. What are the conditions of the Deulin truce of 1618? With Poland?

b) Russia gave Smolensk to Poland

c) Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversk lands went to Poland.

In the village of Deulino near the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in 1618. The Deulin truce was concluded with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which retained the Smolensk, Novgorod-Seversk and Chernigov lands.

5. Where did the first metallurgical plants appear?

b) in the Urals and Tula.

The development of small-scale production prepared the basis for the emergence of manufactories. Manufacture is a large enterprise based on the division of labor and handcraft techniques. In the 17th century Metallurgical plants were built in the Urals and in the Tula region.

6. What did the Council Code of 1649 introduce?

a) severe punishments for crimes against the king and the church.

b) the final equalization of the rights of the estate and patrimony.

c) restrictions on the growth of church and monastic land ownership.

d) freedom from the tax of fugitive settlements in favor of the state.

e) unlimited search for fugitives.

f) assignment of townspeople to the town.

g) serfdom.

“For the sake of fear and civil strife from all black people,” as Patriarch Nikon later wrote, the Zemsky Sobor was convened. Its meetings took place in 1648 -1649. and ended with the adoption of the Council Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The Council Code consisted of 25 chapters and contained about a thousand articles. Any criticism of the church and blasphemy was punishable by burning at the stake. People accused of treason and insulting the honor of the sovereign, as well as boyars and governors, were executed. The cathedral code provided for the exchange of estates, including the exchange of estates for patrimony, and limited the growth of church land ownership, which reflected the tendency of the church to subordinate to the state.

The most important section was Chapter 11, “The Court of Peasants”: an indefinite search for runaway and abducted peasants was introduced, and peasant transfers from one owner to another were prohibited. This meant the legalization of the serfdom system. Chapter 19 “About townspeople” brought changes to the life of the city. The “white” settlements were liquidated, their population was included in the settlement. The entire urban population had to bear the tax on the sovereign. Thus, the entire taxable population of the country was attached either to the land or, as was the case in the cities, to the settlement.

Even in ancient times, to create labor products and weapons, man began to process the first metals: native gold, silver, copper and meteorite iron. But the few finds could not satisfy the needs of the constantly developing human society. Thus, the improvement of metal processing methods became the most important in the history of civilization.

The Copper Age (Chalcolithic) began with people mastering the technology of hot forging and casting. This was largely due to the development of pottery production. Man learned to create furnaces and ceramic molds for casting copper, which formed the basis for the emergence of metallurgy. Many archaeological finds indicate that metallurgy and the production of weapons from metal in Europe originate in the VI-V millennium BC. e. Thus, on the territory of the Balkan Peninsula, a copper ax was found belonging to the Vinca culture, dated 5500 BC. e.

However, the spread of casting technology, and therefore the copper weapon itself, was hampered by the difficulty in finding nuggets, which became less and less. Therefore, the next important stage in the history of metallurgy was the extraction of copper and other metals from rocks. There is convincing evidence that already in the 5th millennium BC. e. Copper deposits were developed in Central Yugoslavia (Rudna Glava mine) and Central Bulgaria (Aibunar mine, etc.).

Copper is resistant to corrosion, its melting point is relatively low (1080 ° C), which greatly simplifies processing. But copper products were quite soft and easily bent.

Bronze is an alloy of copper, mainly with tin (tin is a ductile, malleable and fusible shiny metal of silver-white color). Bronze was probably discovered by accident when some tin got into the crucible in which native copper was being melted. New material its properties were significantly superior to copper.

The first, back in the 4th millennium BC. e., the inhabitants of the Middle East learned the secrets of bronze processing. In Europe and China, this art was mastered only a thousand years later, and in South America only in the 1st millennium BC. e.

Bronze occupies a special place in the history of wars. Most types of bladed weapons of the Bronze Age were made from it, including long swords. Products of complex shapes were easier to cast from bronze than to forge from iron (pure iron melts at 1535 °C, and bronze at 930-1140 °C, respectively, the master could simply cast bronze products, while iron ones had to be forged). In addition, bronze was harder than iron and not as brittle as steel. For centuries, right up to the 19th century, helmets and armor made of bronze were valued above all else. But due to the high cost of the metal, only very wealthy people could afford such a luxury.

With the advent of gunpowder weapons, the need to produce weapons from bronze decreased, but it did not lose its popularity, since the highest quality guns were produced from its alloys.

In all centuries, the only drawback of bronze, as we have already said, was its high cost. After all, copper, from an alloy of which bronze was created, is found in nature much less frequently than iron. But even when copper could be found, the outcrops of ore layers to the surface were quickly used up, and only technologically highly developed peoples could lift ore to the surface from a vein going deeper and deeper.

In search of tin, many peoples even had to overcome enormous distances, conquer mountain ranges and the sea. For example, the Phoenicians followed him to England. For more than 2,000 years, tin has been one of the most important strategic resources.

These factors forced humanity to actively master the processing of another, more accessible metal - iron. Iron is a malleable metal with high chemical reactivity. Melting point - 1539 °C. Rarely found in nature in its pure form.

Iron has been known to man since time immemorial. Meteoric iron was one of the first metals used to make weapons. For example, the Egyptian “heavenly daggers”, created, as the Egyptians said, from iron “born in heaven” around the 3rd millennium BC, were highly valued. e. At this time, meteorite iron was valued significantly higher than soft gold. According to the description of the Greek historian and geographer Strabo, African tribes gave ten pounds of gold for one pound of iron. But before the development of new metal processing technologies (carburizing, hardening, welding), the quality of products made from it was significantly worse compared to bronze. However, according to the descriptions of the legendary ancient Greek poet Homer, already during the Trojan War (approximately 1250 BC) iron was well known and highly valued, although the bulk of weapons were made of copper and bronze.

Corinthian helmet. Bronze. British Museum, London

The “Iron Revolution” began at the turn of the 1st millennium BC. e. After the fall of the state of the Hittites, great masters in iron processing, Greek traders spread their secrets. From that moment on, iron products began to replace copper and bronze ones. Archaeological excavations have shown that the Greeks themselves by 1100 BC. e. A sufficient number of swords, spears and axes made of this metal appeared.

The ancient Greeks considered the mysterious people of the Khalibs, whom Herodotus mentions among the Hellenic tribes of Asia Minor, to be the ancestors of metallurgy. The Khalibs were engaged in fishing and mining, and lived in the eastern Pontus from the mountains to the sea (as well as near the borders of Armenia and Mesopotamia). It is from the name of this people (Greek HoLiras;) that the word “steel” (Greek

In one of his works ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle describes the technological process of obtaining metal by halibs. They washed the river sand several times, apparently in this way separating the heavy iron-containing fraction of the rock. Then they added some kind of refractory substance and melted it all in specially designed furnaces. The metal thus obtained had a silvery color and was stainless.

The secret of Khalib stainless steel, which has high qualities, lay not in any special production process, but in the raw materials they used. So, magnetite sands, which are often found along the entire Black Sea coast, were used for steel smelting. These sands consist of a mixture of small grains of magnetite, ilmenite or titanomagnetite and fragments of other rocks, so the steel smelted by the Khalibs was alloyed (in addition to the usual impurities, it contains elements added in certain quantities to provide the necessary physical or mechanical properties) and that is why it had such high properties .

Homer in his poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey” calls iron a “difficult metal” because in ancient times the main method of its production was the cheese-blowing process. It was in cheese furnaces that the first processes in human history for obtaining iron from ore took place. Initially, this furnace was a simple pipe, usually dug horizontally into the slope of a ravine. Here the ore was mixed with charcoal. After the coal burned out, a kritsa remained in the furnace - a lump of a substance mixed with reduced iron. Such a lump was again heated and subjected to forging, beating iron out of the slag.

The first cheese furnaces had a relatively low temperature, so the iron was low-carbon. But sometimes at the bottom of the furnaces, where the metal was most in contact with the coal, pieces of iron of excellent quality were found. Man intuitively began to increase the area of ​​contact with coal, since he did not yet fully understand the reasons for this phenomenon. This is how people got steel.

Steel is iron that contains carbon: the higher the carbon content, the harder the steel. The technology for producing steel was known to the Hittites. In particular, the Hittite king Mursilis II noted “good iron” among other things in his letters. But in order to get “good iron”, it was necessary to calcinate and forge the kritsa with coal many times so that it was sufficiently saturated with carbon. This process was long and tedious and did not always guarantee a good result. This led to the search for new, more efficient furnace designs.

The cheese furnace was a hollow structure made of stones coated with clay, or entirely made of clay.

There were holes in the walls for inflating with bellows.

The next step after the discovery of the cheese furnace was the invention of the stukto-hairdryer - a furnace with a high (usually about 4 m) pipe to enhance traction. The hair dryer bellows were much larger, and the air supply holes were precisely adjusted to them. The melting point in a stuff-hair dryer was much higher than in a cheese-blowing furnace, which made it possible to obtain more high-carbon steel and even cast iron (an alloy of iron with a carbon content of more than 2.14%). The latter, however, solidified at the bottom of the furnace, mixing with slag, and the only method of cleaning at that time was forging, which cast iron did not lend itself to. Therefore, at this stage of development of metallurgy, cast iron was considered an unusable metal, a waste product. Sometimes, however, cast iron, heavily contaminated with slag, managed to find at least some use. So, in India, good coffins were cast from it, and in Turkey, unimportant cannonballs were cast.

The first Stuktofens appeared in India back in the 1st millennium BC. e., from there they came to China at the beginning of our era, and in the 7th century. - to the Arab world. In the 13th century Stuktoven began to appear in Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic. Thanks to them, it was possible to get up to 250 kg of iron per day.

It was not difficult to understand that the higher the temperature in the furnace, the more iron can be obtained from the ore. So, following the Stukofens in the 15th century. In Europe, a new type of stove appeared - blauofen. The new stoves were larger and taller, and the chimney became taller. But the main thing that distinguished Blauofen from Stukofen was that the air was supplied to it already heated, which made it possible to increase the melting point.

Indeed, the Blauofen significantly increased the yield of iron from ore, but these furnaces were somewhat ahead of their time. The fact is that, along with an increase in temperature, a larger amount of iron was carburized to the state of cast iron, which was still mixed with slag and could not be cleaned. In those days, cast iron was considered nothing more than a curse, and increasing its quantity was no less than the machinations of the devil. If in Stukofen the amount of cast iron produced did not exceed 10%, then in Blauofen it reached 30%. All over the world, cast iron has received far from flattering names. In England they called him “pork”, a good-for-nothing iron. This name has survived to this day. In Central Europe, cast iron was called “wild stone” due to the absence of any noble, useful qualities in the resulting material. Yes and Russian name cast iron “pig” does not characterize the best attitude towards it: in these lands this is what they called piglets.

The closed shaft of the stucco fan concentrated heat well

A real breakthrough in metallurgy had to wait until the beginning of the 16th century, when the so-called conversion process, or the process of producing steel from ore in two stages, became widespread in Europe. Unfortunately, history has not preserved the name of the master who was the first to think of turning cast iron obtained from ore into high-quality steel by repeated annealing in forges. The conversion process made it possible to take a qualitatively new step in the development of metallurgy and the production of bladed weapons. Thus, it was already possible to make curved swords and other complex edged weapons from converted steel.

In addition to the possibility of obtaining high-quality steel, this discovery led to many other significant changes. As the demand for cast iron increased sharply, a new type of furnace - blast furnace - rapidly developed and was mastered.

A blast furnace is a large metallurgical, vertically located shaft-type melting furnace, with air preheating and mechanical blast. It made it possible to turn all the iron from ore into cast iron, which was melted and periodically released out. A constant flow of air in the furnaces was provided by bellows, which were driven by water wheels. Thus, iron production became continuous. The blast furnace never cooled down, as a result one blast furnace could produce up to three tons of iron per day.

It was much easier to distill pig iron obtained in blast furnaces into iron in forges. In this regard, the first division of labor in metallurgy appeared, which had a positive effect on the quality of the resulting steel. This is how a two-stage method of producing steel from iron ore arose: some specialists now obtained cast iron from ore, and others - steel from cast iron.

But, as a rule, technological progress also has another, negative side. The never-ending English blast furnaces required huge amounts of charcoal. The result was the destruction of most of Britain's forests. A way out of such a difficult situation was found only at the beginning of the 18th century, when in 1735 the English metallurgist industrialist Abraham Derby I began to use coke obtained from coal instead of charcoal. Before this, coal was not used in metallurgy due to its relatively high content impurities harmful to metal, primarily sulfur. In addition, the coal was crushed during the heating process, which made it difficult to supply air. But heated to high temperatures (950-1050 °C), without air access, charcoal lost many harmful impurities and coked, acquiring a more dense structure. In addition, Abraham Derby I patented a method for casting cast iron in sand molds, which significantly reduced the cost of production.

Despite such impressive development, the inhabitants of India and the Middle East were in no hurry to adopt the technology of producing cast iron in a blast furnace from the Europeans. And this is not at all due to the technological backwardness of these regions, but to the lack of water to power the bellows. Deprived of the opportunity to chase quantity, representatives eastern countries made an attempt to replace it with quality as much as possible.

Despite the fact that the use of subsoil in ancient Rus' has its roots in the distant past; the first information about the extraction and processing of metals and other minerals appeared only at the beginning of the 15th century.

It is known that already in the X-XIII centuries. On the territory of ancient Rus', salt, building stone, mineral paints, non-ferrous and precious metals were mined. There are references to “forgers” (blacksmiths) and iron products in the Treaty of Prince Igor (945), the chronicle of Nestor (1096), the message of Daniel the Zatochnik, the life of Theodosius of Pechersk and other ancient monuments of Russian writing. During this period, right up to the Tatar-Mongol conquest, the development of mining was associated with the most pressing practical needs of the population of the Russian principalities. Rock salt deposits were developed in the Cis-Carpathian trough, near Pereslavl-Zalessky in the Rostov principality, in the Kostroma land and near the White Sea (Nenoksa). In the XII-XIII centuries. iron deposits were developed, mainly lake and swamp (limonite) ores, known since ancient times in the west of the Principality of Polotsk, in the Novgorod land in the vicinity of Novgorod, near Tikhvin, Kargopol and near the White Sea coast near Vygozero (Figure 64). The abundance of forests allowed our ancestors to use exclusively charcoal for iron smelting.

Figure 64 - Mining of bog iron ores.

In the XII-XV centuries. In the central regions of Russia, the extraction of iron bog ores reached a significant level. During the same period, on the territory of Kievan Rus and in the vicinity of Novgorod, the development of deposits of shallow brown iron ores and indigenous siderite ores began.

Ancient miners used tools made of stone, wood, copper, bronze, horn and bone: wooden and bronze wedges, stone hammers, copper, bronze, stone and horn picks, stone ore crushers, wooden shovels. Mining was carried out by small groups of people, perhaps families, and there appears to have been a division of labor between men who mined and crushed large pieces of ore, women who did fine crushing, and children who brought the ore to the surface and worked in the narrow faces where an adult could not enter.

The search was carried out using special probes, and the mining was carried out with shovels and picks (Figure 65). One person mined approximately 750 kg of ore per day. Leather bags were used to carry ore, willow baskets, trough. Notched logs and carved steps were used as ladders to descend into the mines. The mines were illuminated with torches or oil lamps. Fastenings made of stone blocks were very rarely used.

a) wooden shovel; b) bronze pickle, about 22 cm long

Figure 65 - Miner's tools

Crushed ore was burned in pits at the mining site and taken, sometimes a considerable distance, to villages, where it was smelted in small furnaces using charcoal using hand-held blowers (Figure 66).

Figure 66 - Melting metal

Later, the tribes of the Southern Urals mastered the production of iron from local bog iron ore, as well as from brown iron ores that came to the surface (now the Bakalsky and Tukansky iron ore regions). The ores mined by ancient miners were smelted on site.

In the Altai and other Siberian archives, information has been preserved about hundreds of ancient, so-called Chud mines, following the traces of which in the 18th-19th centuries. Zyryanovskoye, Ridderskoye and many other polymetallic deposits were discovered and explored.

Peipus miners mined rich fusible ores in the upper horizons of the deposits. Having discovered the outcropping of copper green, copper blue, ocher and quartz ores to the surface, they began open-pit work using burial pits or cutting ditches. In this case, the rich ore was selected, and the rock and low-grade ore were thrown into dumps, which formed large embankments next to the mine. The Chud dumps served as a reference point for ore prospectors in the 18th-19th centuries.

When the sections, or spreads, as they were called before, reached 8-10 m in depth, in the most enriched areas of the vein - “nests” - open work turned into underground - adits, slopes, pits. The underground work consisted of irregular passages, repeating the shape of the ore body, expanding into chambers up to 3 m in height in places where the vein swelled and narrowing into cracks up to 30 cm in height where the vein began to wedge out. In narrow mines, 1-2 people could work simultaneously. The Chud miners did not know how to pump out water, and below the level groundwater their workings did not go down. Ventilation was carried out naturally. For illumination, daylight was used, penetrating into shallow workings, and in deep adits and pits - splinters and stone bowls, into which fat was poured and a wick was lowered (Figure 67).

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Figure 67 - Reconstruction of the metallurgical process. The well and the furnace are connected by an air duct. Sacrifices to the God of Fire were placed at the bottom of the well..

Settlement Arkaim

A significant iron production center for its time emerged in Gornaya Shoria and the Kuznetsk Basin. Shor blacksmiths supply other regions of Siberia and Dzungaria with iron products. Archaeologists have repeatedly found in the Kuzbass, in the spurs of Salair and Kuznetsk Alatau, the remains of ancient iron mines and smelters and ancient iron products.

The extraction of iron ore and the production of iron among the Shors and other peoples of Siberia was a small-scale home production, in best case scenario craft. The top of the forge was covered with a small round clay lid. There was a hole in the front wall of the furnace, which was closed with stone and covered with clay during smelting. Attached to the side of the forge were two hand-held blowers. Two people worked at the forge. One pumped air into the furnace using bellows, the other alternately threw in charcoal and finely crushed ore, and poured the ore little by little from the tip of the knife. After about three pounds of ore had been poured in, the smelter, having worked with the bellows for some more time, took out the stone embedded below with tongs, pulled out the kritsa and, beating it with a piece of wood, cleared it of adhering coal (Figure 68).

Figure 68 - Melting furnace

Beginning with Grand Duke Ivan III, Russian sovereigns invited foreign mining specialists. Special ore-hunting expeditions were equipped, for which specific goals were set. So, in the second half of the 15th century. By decree of Grand Duke Ivan III, several expeditions were sent for the treasures of the Riphean Mountains - as the Ural Mountains were called in Rus'.

The ruin of the country during the Time of Troubles significantly delayed the industrial development of the state. The founder of the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Fedorovich, had to begin his activities in the conditions of the decline of industry, including mining and metallurgy. Figure 69 shows the prototype of a 16th century ironworks.

Figure 69 - Melting furnace. 16th century

When Russia recovered from the consequences of the military intervention of the Swedes and Poles, the search for minerals again attracted the attention of the government. The growing needs of the state for mineral raw materials and ores forced the development of these works even more intensively, again attracting foreign specialists to them, and sending special parties to find ores.

In 1557, the Stroganov brothers discovered and soon began to develop lake iron ore deposits near Totma on the Sukhona. At the same stage, deposits of a new type of iron ore raw materials - brown iron ores near Kashira, Tula, Kaluga, Serpukhov, were brought into operation, on the basis of which in 1632-1667. The famous Tula “iron-making” factories arose. Their founder was the Russified Dutch merchant A. Vinius. In 1628, iron ore was found on the Nice River, in 1635 - the Kunzhur deposit near the Yayva River. Another iron ore deposit was located southwest of Protva, near Maloyaroslavets. This ore-bearing area was known for a very long-standing development, the focus of which dates back to the beginning of the 16th century. was the city of Serpukhov. Thus, in the first third of the 16th century. By the beginning of the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible, one can see a noticeable expansion of the geography of mining in our country, expressed both in the involvement in the development of new types of minerals in old areas, and in the discovery and beginning of development of deposits in new territories (Ust-Tsilma, Solikamsk, etc. .). But Rus'’s needs for iron and copper were still not satisfied by domestic production, so these metals still had to be purchased from the Swedes, Dutch and British.

Figure 70 - Lifting ore from the mine

Search for ores in the Urals and Trans-Urals ( Western Siberia) were a special concern of the sovereigns who ruled in the 16th-17th centuries. Extension Russian state to the east (Urals and Siberia) was accompanied by the discovery of numerous new mineral deposits, primarily thanks to the heroic efforts of Russian explorers: simple Cossacks, merchants, and industrialists. The most important role in this was played by the Siberian Order, created in 1637 and organizing numerous expeditions to the eastern regions of the country. Often such expeditions were carried out at the request and with the participation of “hunting people” - archers, Cossacks, peasants, artisans, who, on their own initiative, went in search of minerals. Figures 70 and 71 show mining operations from the 15th to 17th centuries.

Figure 71 - Mine 15-17 centuries

A number of iron ore deposits were discovered in the Urals, on the basis of which in the middle of the 17th century. The first small metallurgical plants for smelting cast iron arose in Tura, Iset, and Cherdyn. Almost until the end of the century they used relatively fusible brown iron ores, although as early as 1628. Richer but refractory magnetite ores were discovered near Nevyansk. In the Murzinsky mines on the western slope of the Ural ridge, jasper, agate, malachite and other colored stones were mined. One of the first gold mines appeared in the Middle Urals in the upper reaches of the Pyshma River.

In 1662, the Dolmatov Monastery was founded at the mouth of the river. Zheleznyanka, right tributary of the Iset, ironworks. In 1697 On the Sarali River, the Saralinsky state-owned copper smelter was built. At the end of the 17th century. The Ufa (Elabuga) state-owned ironworks was built near the village of Yelabuga (Figure 72).

Figure 72 – Iron plant

In the second half of the 17th century. search business in Russia was so in demand that “people who wanted it” were given various benefits, thanks to which most searches were carried out on personal initiative and at the own expense of these people.

A single main management center for the mining industry until the end of the 17th century. there was none in Russia. Control mining affairs was carried out through various Orders. This chaotic state of mining management was a very serious obstacle to the spread of mining. Local management of mining affairs and factories was given to the governors of those districts in which ores were discovered. In other cases, factories were entrusted with the management of private individuals to whom they were given.

However, the policy of the Moscow state carried out over a whole century, by the end of the 17th century. led to the need to create a unified management of mining affairs. In 1700, from the order of the Great Treasury, a special order of Mining Affairs was allocated, the creation of which was secured by a special decree of Peter I dated August 24, 1700. The decree regulating the activities of the order of Mining Affairs prescribed in all cities of the Moscow state “to search for gold and silver and copper and other ores, and whoever finds it should immediately report it to the governors and officials.” The decree of Peter I of 1700 on the establishment of the Order of Mining Affairs marked the beginning of a targeted state policy in the field of prospecting and development of mineral resources in our country.

The transformations of Peter the Great's time are associated with a significant expansion of searches and exploration of mineral deposits. Mining began to be viewed as a matter of national importance. The privileges of 1719 for “all ore hunters” proclaimed freedom of exploration and development of mineral resources, and bonuses were promised for the discovery of silver and copper ores. Exploration work, which was quite significant at that time, was being carried out in the European part of Russia, in the Urals and Siberia, a number of deposits of iron, non-ferrous and precious metals were being discovered, on which mining operations were being organized.

The success of Russian metallurgy in the Peter the Great era is also evidenced by the fact that instead of 35 thousand pounds of iron imported from Sweden, by 1726 Russia could export over 55 thousand pounds only through the Baltic ports. Since 1712, the import of weapons into the country from Europe was stopped, and by 1714 the number of iron and copper cannons cast in Russian factories amounted to several thousand pieces. By the end of Peter's reign, exports of Russian goods were twice as high as imports.

Figure 73 - Peter the Great (1682-1725)

Peter I himself (Figure 73) was interested in geology and mining sciences. He studied collections of ores, minerals and fossils, the experience of mines, and organized examinations of the quality of ores from discovered deposits.

The Tsar personally supported private entrepreneurship in mining, thanks to which the country by the middle of the 17th century. large mining industrialists appeared - the Demidovs, Stroganovs, Osokins.

TO early XVIII centuries in the European part of the country, the forests around most metallurgical plants were practically cleared due to the increased use of charcoal. An acute shortage of fuel gave impetus to the development of combustible minerals. In 1723, the expedition of G.G. Kapustin discovered the first deposits of coal in the Donbass. The serf peasant I. Palitsyn and the ore prospector M. Titov discovered coal in the Moscow region in 1722. During these same years, M. Volkov discovered coal in the Tomsk region. Since the 40s, they began to mine coal in the east of Donbass, peat on the Neva, in the Smolensk province and in Meshchera. From 1771-1789 coal deposits of Kuzbass were developed. Semi-artisanal oil production (by scooping it out of wells) was carried out in Ukhta. Rich coal deposits were discovered in the Tula region, the Kansk-Achinsk basin, Cheremkhovo, Podkamennaya Tunguska and Sakhalin, but their development began only at subsequent stages. In the 18th century Coal was initially used on a small scale for saltworks and small forges, and only over time began to be widely used as the main energy raw material in metallurgy.

With the development of mining production in Russia, there is a need for the training of special personnel. Peter I encouraged the organization of mining technical schools at factories and the internship of young Russian specialists abroad. So, by order of Peter I, the first mining school was opened in Nevyanovka in 1709. In 1721, schools of mining masters were opened in Kungur and Uktus, which in 1723 were transferred to Yekaterinburg and transformed into a school that trained specialist miners and scouts for the Urals, Altai and Siberia. The development of mining was also facilitated by the discovery in 1725. Russian Academy of Sciences.

Outstanding figures in the field of “setting up mining exploration and factories,” father and son - Nikita and Akinfiy Demidov (Figure 74) - used their own funds to train “mountain people” in France, Germany, Sweden and other countries. V.N. made a huge contribution to the development of mining education. Tatishchev (Figure 75). He opened two mining schools, freed those wishing to study from recruitment, and sent a group of young people to Sweden to study mining, who later became the first professional Russian geologists.

Figure 74 - Nikita Demidov, Tula blacksmith and outstanding Russian mining manufacturer, who built his iron smelter in Tula in 1696, (March 26, 1656 - November 17, 1725)

Achievements of the Demidovs in the development of metallurgy in the 18th century. are clearly illustrated, for example, by the growth rates of pig iron production at their Ural factories. Already in 1717 The Nevyansk plant, completed by Nikita Demidov, produced 110 thousand poods of cast iron out of 135 thousand poods across all its factories, in 1725 - 323 thousand poods out of 348 thousand. In the 40s, 735 thousand pounds of cast iron were smelted at Ural factories.

The Demidovs are rightly considered one of the founders of the Russian mining and metallurgical industry. The factories they built already in the first half of the 18th century produced four times more production than state-owned ones. Moreover, thanks to the Demidovs, already in the 30s of the 18th century, Russia overtook industrial England in the scale of iron production and firmly took first place in the world, maintaining this primacy until the end of the 18th century.

Figure 75 - V.N. Tatishchev

The training of mining engineers began in Russia in 1773 at the Mining School (later - the Mining Cadet Corps, the Institute of the Corps of Mining Engineers, the Mining Institute) in St. Petersburg. This is the highest mountain educational institution remained the only one until the end of the 19th century.

The contribution of the outstanding Russian scientist M.V. is especially great. Lomonosov in the development of domestic science about minerals, their search and exploration.

A significant influence on the development of prospecting and mining in Russia was exerted by his work “The First Foundations of Metallurgy or Ore Mining” with the appendix of the treatise “On the Layers of the Earth,” published in 1763. It for the first time defines ore veins, provides characteristic prospecting features of ore minerals and their companions (Figures 76,77).

During the 18th century, the Russian ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy was in a state of rapid growth. A new industrial region is being created in the Urals based on high-grade ores and other types of raw materials. The first metallurgical plants in the Urals were built by the treasury, then the Demidovs, Osokins, Stroganovs and others were involved in industrial construction. Industrial products The Urals grew rapidly, and by the beginning of the third decade of the 18th century. The Urals occupied a leading place in Russia in terms of the amount of cast iron smelted, leaving behind the old, long-exploited areas of the Moscow region, Tula and Kashira. Thus, already in 1720, 296,163 pounds of cast iron were smelted in the Urals, while all operating enterprises in the central mining region produced only 120,000 pounds. At the same time, the Urals were the only region in the country where industrial copper mining was carried out.

Figure 76 - M.V. Lomonosov (1711-1765) Figure 77 - Title page of the work

M.V. Lomonosov "First foundations

metallurgy or ore mining"

Following the deposits of magnetic iron ore discovered in 1696 in the Verkhnetursky district, the richest iron deposits were explored in the city of Vysokaya near Nizhny Tagil, the city of Blagodat near Kushva, the city of Magnitnaya, as well as in the areas of Kachkanar and Bakal. Most of them have been in use since the 18th century. up to now. The first metallurgical plant operating on magnetic iron ores was Nevyansk, built in 1701. and the following year transferred by royal decree to Nikita Demidov. His son Akinfiy founded in the Urals in the first half of the 18th century. 17 new metallurgical plants. On the basis of Bakal ores in 1757-1762. Zlatoust, Ust-Katav and other factories arose. At the same time, deposits of silver and copper were discovered and began to be developed in the Orenburg region. Copper was also mined in Bashkiria (cuprous sandstones), on Southern Urals near Miass, in the Northern Urals in the river basin. Vishers.

Figure 78 - Vyksa Metallurgical Plant - one of the oldest in Russia; built in 1767

In the second half of the 18th century. 52 factories were built in the Urals, including 26 iron smelting and iron making plants.

The Urals became the main mining region of Russia, which in the 18th century. occupied a monopoly position in the smelting of cast iron and copper, and in the production of cast iron - first place in the world. At the factories of the Urals in the 18th century. 30,835,760 pounds of cast iron and 5,398,997 pounds of copper were produced, which accounted for 42.3% of the cast iron and 67.5% of the copper produced in Russia during this period.

Figure 79 - Ore receiving office. Late 18th century

19th century was marked by a powerful leap in the development of the productive forces of most advanced countries of Europe and North America, which in history was given the name of the industrial revolution. This industrial restructuring also affected the Russian Empire, especially in the second half of the century after the abolition of serfdom.

Significant progress has been made in the field of mining mechanization (Figure 80). The breaking of rocks using explosives is becoming very widespread. Great value had the invention of electric and then pneumatic drilling machines in 1857, and dynamite in 1868. The relatively widespread introduction of mechanical drilling and high-blasting explosives for the purpose of breaking rocks was carried out in Russia by the end of the 80-90s. XIX century.

Figure 80 – The first railway-powered steam shovel

In the central regions of the European part of the country, iron ore mining continued. From the middle of the 19th century. The development of brown coal began in the Tula region. Numerous peat deposits were exploited in eastern Poland, near Novgorod, Tver, Tambov and other places. The first deposits of phosphorites were established in the Baltic states, near Voronezh, in the Kama region, and Transnistria.

In the 19th century The development of iron ores in Krivoy Rog and manganese ores in Nikopol began (since 1886), which contributed to the creation of metallurgical production in Ukraine. The scale of coal mining has increased, which has now begun to be developed in the west of Donbass (Figure 81). In general, we can state the emergence of a new southern mining center in European Russia.

Figure 81 - Donetsk began at the end of the 19th century with such dugouts and powerful industrial construction

In August 1870, on the right bank of the Kalmius River, seven kilometers south of the station. Aleksandrovka, Bakhmutovsky district, Ekaterinoslav province, Novorossiysk society began construction of a metallurgical plant.

Figure 82 - Blast furnaces of a metallurgical plant. 1884

January 24, 1872 - the beginning of regular iron smelting - is considered the founding day of the Donetsk Metallurgical Plant. By this time, 24 puddling and 13 welding furnaces were built at the plant, in 1874 - rolling mills for the production of iron rails, strip and long iron, in 1879 - open-hearth furnaces. In 1876, blast furnace No. 2 was launched, and in 1880, blast furnace No. 3 was launched. Already in the 90s of the 19th century, the plant not only became one of the largest metallurgical enterprises of the Russian Empire, but also occupied first place in the smelting of cast iron and steel (Figure 82).

Compared to the largest centers of ferrous metallurgy and the coal industry in Russia - the Urals and Donbass - iron smelting and coal mining in the Altai District was carried out on an insignificant scale. So, for 1860 at the Ural factories 14.5 million poods were smelted, and at the Altai factories - 97.8 thousand poods of cast iron and coal in the Donbass in 1860. 6.0 million poods were produced, and in Kuzbass - 55.0 thousand poods. All ironworks and coal mines of the Altai District were located on the territory of the modern Kuzbass economic region - one of the main centers of the coal industry and ferrous metallurgy in modern Russia.

Engineer-captain A. Sokolovsky published the 2nd in 1842. in the Mining Journal, an article that for the first time tries to connect together data on coal deposits in the Kuznetsk Basin, the first defines the boundaries of the “carboniferous region” and predicts that the presence of coal and iron ores here opens up opportunities “for the development of extensive factory production.”

Regular coal mining in the Kuznetsk district began in 1851. at the Bachatskoye field, 27 versts northeast of the Guryevsky plant. Coal production was hampered by the fact that assigned peasants and coal miners supplied cheaper charcoal to the factories as a duty. Therefore, there was no incentive to switch to mineral fuels. With the fall of serfdom, coal mining immediately began to increase. In 1859 27 thousand poods were mined in 1860. – 55 thousand, in 1861 - 230 thousand pounds of coal from the Bachatsky and Afoninsky deposits.

Russian Empire To end of the 19th century century, stood firmly on the path of industrialization, more complete involvement in the sphere of economic activity of the riches of its subsoil, expansion of the mineral resource base of the metallurgical and fuel and energy industries.

From the 60s to the early 90s of the 19th century, coal production in the country increased 20 times, and iron smelting more than 3 times. In 1901, Russia took first place in the world in oil production. Length railways over the last 15 years of the 19th century it increased from 26 to 52 thousand km. Thanks to the construction of the Great Siberian Railway, the accelerated development of the mining industry in Eastern Siberia and in the Far East, but these trends were interrupted by the First World War and the October Revolution and were realized already in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods (Figure 83).

Figure 83 - Kuznetsk Iron and Steel Works named after. I.V. Stalin in the late 30s of the 20th century.

Demidovs: A century of victories Yurkin Igor Nikolaevich

The first metallurgical manufactories of the Tula region

The first metallurgical manufactories of the Tula region

The described technology was simple and cheap, thanks to which it became widespread and was used in Russia for a very long time - until the 18th century inclusive.

Meanwhile, in Europe, back in the 12th century, they learned to produce a fundamentally different, high-carbon alloy - cast iron - from iron ore. Reduction with the new technology was carried out in much larger furnaces (the ancestors of modern blast furnaces) and, thanks to more intense blasting, at a higher temperature. Having disadvantages (in particular, increased fragility compared to iron), cast iron also had valuable qualities - first of all, good casting properties. Over time, a method was developed to reduce the carbon content in the alloy, so that it turned into ordinary low-carbon iron. This is how a fundamentally new technology for processing iron ore was born: in contrast to the previously existing one-stage (ore - iron) - two-stage (ore - pig iron - iron). More complex than the previous one, it had many advantages. There were two most important ones: the immeasurably greater productivity of the process and greater homogeneity of the metal, which made it possible to ensure a more stable quality. The blast furnace plant had all the signs of manufacturing. It was a relatively large production. It employed craftsmen who were highly specialized in their skills - blast furnace, foundry, dam and others. Complex mechanisms operated here, no longer operated manually, but by the power of water, which is why such factories were called “water-powered”.

The first attempts to create a blast furnace manufactory in Russia are associated with the activities of English merchants who appeared here under Ivan the Terrible. But the permission he gave for this was soon revoked. The first blast furnace in Muscovy appeared much later - under the first tsar from the Romanov dynasty.

The father of Russian blast furnace metallurgy was destined to become the Dutch entrepreneur Andreas Dionysius (in Russia Andrey Denisovich) Vinius, who was initially engaged in trade here. A couple of times, on behalf of the government, he quite successfully sold government grain abroad, thanks to which he received benefits as an incentive. In 1632, the sovereign granted the merchant again: at his request, he ordered him and his companions, his brother Abraham (Abram) Vinius and Julius Willeken (Elisha Vylkens, Wilkensen), from iron ore “to make all kinds of iron for ten years without rent.” It was ordered to do this (it was specified: “against their petition”) “between Serpukhov and Tula on three rivers: on the Voshan river, and on the Skniga river, and on the Vorona river and forward, where they ... find a place.” The companions were instructed to “set up mills in those places and melt and cast iron for all sorts of items and forge cannons and cannonballs and cauldrons and boards and various rods and do all kinds of iron work.” “Mills” meant hydraulic power plants used to power blast furnace blowers and hammers for forging iron with water.

The factories - in fact, workshops of a single enterprise - were placed in a chain along the Tulitsa River, a tributary of the Upa River, at a distance of one or two miles from one another. (The weakness of the watercourses of small rivers did not allow them to be placed nearby.) Address: Tula district, Starogorodishchensky Stan, from which the factories received one of the names - Gorodishchensky (another - Tula). From the nearest of them to the Tula armory (which we will get to know later) it was only 12 miles. Let us pay attention: the first blast furnace plant in Russia, which produced products already in 1636, operated near the center where weapons were made from time immemorial. The connection between two branches of Russian industry - ferrous metallurgy and weapons production, which had existed for a long time, was further strengthened with the launch of the domain near Tula.

The Gorodishchensky factories combined the production of cast iron and its conversion into iron. The factories that cast cannons and cannonballs, and made frying pans and shackles became an experimental testing ground that proved that cast iron could be cast from Russian ores no worse than in other countries, and that iron from such cast iron in many cases completely replaced Swedish. The state, vitally interested in the presence of such an industry in Russia (which largely met the needs of the army), helped its development: it provided loans to factory owners and assigned palace peasants to the factories.

The first builder of the plants, Andrei Vinius, “fell out” of their history a decade after the launch. The furnaces and hammers created by his care were passed on to his “second wave” companions: the Dutch merchant Philemon Akema and a native of Hamburg, resident of the Danish king, Peter Marcelis. It was they who built, about forty versts from the Gorodishche plants, Russia’s first purely refining (iron-making) complex - the Kashira plants on the Skniga River, which worked on cast iron, the hammer mills on Tulitsa could not cope with the complete processing of it. They were followed by new manufactories. Thus, the Gorodishche plants became the center of the Tula-Kashira metallurgical region, the oldest in the history of Russian blast furnace metallurgy.

Most of the owners of Russian metallurgical factories in the 17th century were foreigners. There were exceptions, but not many. Only in last decade century, a new trend has emerged. In 1690, all the Marcelis factories, as escheat property, went to the treasury and were soon transferred to the domestic owner - the uncle of Tsar Peter Alekseevich, boyar Lev Kirillovich Naryshkin. And a few years later, Russian entrepreneurs began building factories. The first of them were the founders of the plant in the city of Romanov, clerk Kuzma Borin and Nikita Aristov, who belonged to the living hundred. Around the same time, state-owned gunsmith Nikita Demidov was building his first factory in Tula.