Drafts drawings from the Mining Museum's storage facilities will help restore the historic appearance of the Polevskoy Copper Smelting Plant.
The unique documents dating as far back as the eighteenth century were found on the premises of St. Petersburg Mining University, in the Mining Museum. The news was confirmed on December 4 by the Press Office of Museum's storage rooms.
The query on the historical records came from employees of the local history centre of the Polevskoy Urban Okrug working on a book about the history of the settlement. As part of that work, they took on a mission of compiling together maps and drawings of typical buildings, mines, and factories of the town and surroundings.
"Contemporary cartographers do not study old maps; hence they often mangle names of geographical locations. For instance, any present-day map of the Polevskoy Okrug lacks names of numerous features: that is, mountains, rivers, swamps, creeks, and other areas. What we aim to do is to re-create these words," explains Stanislav Karpov, the project leader and ethnographer
It, however, turned out that 300-year-old documents could not be retrieved from local museums of the Ural region. A particular interest of historians was drawn to illustrations made by Georg Wilhelm de Gennin, who under the order of Peter the Great gave a start to construction of the copper works.
The Mining Museum's staff provided a prompt and unexpectedly positive response to the query. Its employees found both colour pictures of the Polevskoy Plant and almost a dozen of drawings of other enterprises. The findings were initially used to illustrate the manuscript copy of the "Characterisation of Ural Mining Works" that was written by a founder of the Russian non-ferrous metal industry. The book tells about the early days of the industry and its rise in Siberia and the Ural, provides an insight into the weather conditions of the region and managerial advice tailored to the needs of mining businesses. For almost 150 years, the guide book had remained the only information source for engineers planning to establish a mining enterprise of any kind, or solve an engineering problem.
"We cherish old books in our possession. Over time the data changes and becomes distorted, and the only way to prevent it from altering is by preserving original pieces. Polevskoy Copper Smelting Plant is part of the history of the mineral resources sector and, therefore, is also of interest to Mining University. We were happy to assist enthusiasts in researching the topic," admits Mikhail Shabalov, Director of the Mining Museum.
