"Severe" Nizhny Tagil. One of the largest metallurgical complexes in Russia is located here. But exactly two hundred years ago, in its place there were ordinary barracks, where ordinary men lived, who tempered steel with their bare hands.
The progress of heavy metallurgy in the Urals amazed the whole world. Nizhny Tagil became a forge not only of metallurgy, but related technologies and inventions. It was here that local craftsmen invented the steam engine twenty years earlier than the British. The first Russian steamer was invented here, and then the steam locomotive.
But all these miracles were invented by ordinary Russian serfs. But why did the leadership of the Russian Empire not notice their developments and began to buy the same developments in the West? This is a question that we have to think about, my friends.
1834 year. Nizhny Tagil. There is no free space on the square: a crowd of onlookers wants to see a new miracle machine: "a grandiose steamship Dilijan". The word "locomotive" was not yet known then.
But this news for some reason fell silent and presented to the sovereign a plan to purchase steam locomotives from England at a price three times more expensive. Only one thought suggests itself: if something is done against common sense, then it is very beneficial for someone. The most likely version is that someone made a fortune on this deal.
Perhaps the fact that the same steam locomotive can be ordered in Nizhny Tagil three times cheaper was concealed from the tsar. Let's bring up the facts.
Does anyone know about the Russian inventor Ivan Polzunov, who invented the first steam engine 20 years before the Scotsman Watt? But the whole world knows exactly Watt as the inventor of the first steam engine. And this is not an isolated case.
Model of the steam engine by Ivan Polzunov.
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The serf engineers Efim and his son Miron Cherepanovs were the first in Russia to invent and design a steam locomotive. Interestingly, both died suddenly, one after the other under unknown circumstances. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
After death, father and son seemed to be "banned." It was forbidden to write about them. Until the twentieth century, they were consigned to oblivion. And only in 1935 Leningrad historian Alexander Barmin decided to write about the Cherepanovs.
In Nizhny Tagil, Barmin discovered the unique Demidov archive and discovered that the Cherepanov brothers, during their lifetime, were equated with Leonardo da Vinci, as not only engineers, but also brilliant thinkers and philosophers.
The Demidovs knew that they had ingenious engineers. But let's think, where were the interests of the oligarchs of that time? In Europe, where world capital revolved. And in England, the capital of the world capital of the time. As it turned out, they did not develop their factories, they only skimmed the cream and lived for their own pleasure, and preferred to spend their “cream” in Europe.
It turns out that the Cherepanovs were well known to scientific and technical circles in Europe. Foreign engineers often came to the Cherepanovs to share their experience.
1814 year. All Russian factories run on two engines: a Russian peasant and a water wheel. And factories are being built precisely near water bodies. Hence the name: "plant" - means "for water".
The creation of a conceptually new engine could revolutionize the economy in principle. Efim Cherepanov understood this. Making the peasant's work easier is what drove him, not overturning the economy. And he did not dare to dream of earning money. The mentality was different. The serf's share is to work. And the owners of the factories thought about earnings, the same Demidovs.
To build a steam engine, Efim Cherepanov needed a whole workshop for development and adjustment, but Demidov did not give permission, then Efim decided on an unprecedented event. He sets up a clandestine factory for the production of a steam engine. Unbeknownst to Demidov, but with his money.
Efim and his son Miron set up their underground factory in one of the abandoned blocks of the old factory, where the managers hardly ever looked.
At this time, the Demidov factories suffered losses. England floods Europe with cheap and high-quality iron. Demidov, having learned about Efim Cherepanov and his desire to create a steam engine, does not punish him, but, on the contrary, sends him to England to gain experience. At the same time, Yefim is given a secret mission: to find out the source of the English iron.
Yefim sadly discovers that labor productivity in British factories is 10 times higher than in the Urals. Steam engines have long been introduced in England, which were forgotten in Russia after the death of Polzunov, the inventor of the world's first steam engine.
Having gained experience, Efim returned to Russia and immediately began to rebuild all the Demidov factories. Efim convinces Demidov that it is urgently necessary to introduce steam engines in the Urals.
Demidov agrees and gives money for development. Soon Cherepanov's steam engine started working. She occupied an entire multi-storey building, but she worked excellently.
Further, Efim Cherepanov plans to create the first steamer in Russia so that ships can easily sail against the current. Some didn’t like this idea, because Russia is full of barge haulers; why spend extra money on "some boats". We know the result. The first steamships in Russia were introduced by the Scotsman Charles Byrd.
Demidov turned out, as we can see, to be a completely reasonable person, he appoints Efim Cherepanov as the chief mechanic of all his factories and gives carte blanche for all subsequent developments. Yefim's son Miron becomes his assistant.
As they say, progress cannot be stopped, so in 1824 Efim and Miron Cherepanovs created a steam engine of "unprecedented power", which surpasses the machine of Polzunov, Watt and their previous ones.
Myron invites his father to create a steam self-propelled machine.
The railway was called "wheel line" and the rails were made of cast iron. The first steamer of the Cherepanov Dilijan walked along this wheel-line.
Start of the Cherepanovs' steam locomotive in 1834, artist P. S. Bortnov, 1956
The first tests of the first Russian steam locomotive were successful, but here the fun begins, gentlemen.
The British were furious. They already planned to sell their locomotives to the Russians at a hundred times their cost. They were already making plans to control the entire railway industry in Russia. Yes, as soon as some serfs dared to put a spoke in the wheels of England's plans, its national interests.
Did the British bribe Demidov? Maybe. Let's think it over. Demidov suddenly forbids the Cherepanovs to invent at all. And he assigns overseers to them to keep track of it. The conclusion suggests itself.
But the Cherepanovs went "into the last, decisive battle." They write to the tsar about their invention and about the enormous benefits for Russia to produce their own steam locomotives, and not buy them from England. The Cherepanovs also send the Tsar a model of their steam engine.
But … Efim Cherepanov suddenly dies, and soon his son Miron Cherepanov also dies. The development of the Cherepanovs was soon banned and forgotten, and England's plans to control the entire railway industry in Russia came true.
Here is such a "bitter" story. But what to do, you need to continue to live, my friends. What was, what was, this is history, whatever it is. The task of history is to draw conclusions and not repeat mistakes.
