In the midst of the Civil War, a young scientist from the Mining University, Ivan Bakhurin, along with his mentor Vladimir Bauman, found themselves on the banks of the Ural River at Mount Magnitnaya. They had come to use the magnetometric method of exploration to precisely determine the reserves of local ores, whose wealth had been the stuff of legends for more than a century.
The expedition worked from early spring until late autumn of 1918, during which time many events unfolded—power shifted several times in the nearby settlement. Waves of both "whites" and "reds" swept across the South Ural steppes, with soldiers occasionally visiting the geologists' camp. Once, even Vasily Blyukher, who was passing with his seven-thousand-strong unit from Orenburg along the Ural behind the "whites" lines, climbed up to meet them. The future Marshal of the Soviet Union admired the panoramic view from the mountain, inquired about the purpose and potential outcomes of the surveyors' work, and, learning about the development prospects for the Southern Urals, wished the geologists luck before rejoining his army.
«How can anyone focus on something meant for a distant future when the fate of the revolution is being decided?! Bullets fly past them, and they're weighing the mountain», - puzzled soldiers with weapons would say.
However, despite their skepticism, they left the "eccentric" scientists from Petrograd undisturbed.
Bakhurin and Bauman tried to ignore what was happening at the foot of the mountain, racing to finish their work before winter set in. The result of their colossal effort was a record estimate of reserves that exceeded previous assumptions by more than three times. The magnetometric survey of the deposit raised the potential of Magnitnaya to over 10 billion poods of ore. This survey determined the fate of the deposit, confirming the industrial potential of the region and the necessity for building a metallurgical plant. In the early years of Soviet industrialization, the largest metallurgical plant in the country at the time, the Magnitogorsk Complex, was established here.
For Bauman, who would pass away a few years later from a serious illness, this was the twilight of his career, but for Bakhurin, it marked a confident beginning.
He was born in the Ryazan Province in 1880 and later moved with his family to Tsarskoye Selo. The boy was enrolled in the prestigious Imperial Tsarskoye Selo Gymnasium, known for its illustrious alumni. He studied alongside future poets Nikolai Gumilev and Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky, the renowned infectious disease specialist known as the "conscience of Leningrad's doctors," Gleb Ivashentsov, and the theatrical director Nikolai Akimov, whose name today graces the Comedy Theatre on Nevsky Prospekt. In the story "Muromtsev Has Arrived," another of his classmates, Alexander Otsup, who wrote under the pseudonym Sergey Gorny, remembered Ivan Mikhailovich as one of the "top students":
«Bakhurin had a strong head, round, full of brains. That's what he was called: Bashkan. He smelled of delicious fresh-baked bread and candies. He was the son of a shopkeeper, a robust, cheerful woman with a thick accent. Their home had many little lamps burning, and on the beds, pillows lay stacked like a pyramid, getting smaller toward the top. He walked steadily, head down like an ox, overcoming his path with persistence and a bright, peasant mind, just a little bit cunning. Just the slightest».
"Bashkan" graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal and entered the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute. His university years coincidentally aligned with the development of higher education in the field of surveying.
Mikhail Lomonosov, regarded as the "father" of surveying in Russia, devoted an entire chapter to the measurement of mines and the analysis of mining in his 1763 work The First Foundations of Metallurgy and Mining.
The growth of the mining industry, increasing depth of operations, and overall expansion of underground works required the establishment of specialized services to manage subsurface operations with geometric measurements for orientation within mines and linking them to surface layouts. However, until the early 20th century, there was no dedicated department, curriculum, or separate specialty in Russian universities. These first emerged at the Mining Institute during Ivan Mikhailovich’s studies, and upon graduation, he became the first assistant in Russia's first Department of Mining Surveying.
In 1913, the First All-Russian Congress of Surveyors gathered over 100 leading scientists. One of the most memorable presentations was Bakhurin’s report on magnetic surveying.
The study of the Earth's magnetic field became a lasting theme in the young scientist’s work. This pursuit led him to Mount Magnitnaya and spurred weeks in laboratories, where he developed theoretical foundations and methodologies for magnetic surveying, formulated data interpretation methods for determining the shape and size of magnetic bodies buried underground, created magnetic micro-surveying methods for surveying purposes, and established the concept of inclined magnetization.
Magnetic surveying wasn’t Bakhurin’s only field of expertise. He also formulated key scientific and methodological principles for rock displacement due to underground mining and methods for managing rock pressure. His research in this area extended across the Donbas, the Moscow Coal Basin, the Kuzbass, and the Urals. He laid out principles for hygroscopic orientation and developed the theory of error accumulation, meticulously studying the application of the theory of random errors and the least-squares method for solving surveying problems.
In 1923, Bakhurin, along with Bauman, founded the Institute of Applied Geophysics. The idea was endorsed by the Scientific and Technical Council of the Chief Directorate of the Mining Industry. However, Bauman passed away a few months before its implementation, leaving all the responsibility to Ivan Mikhailovich. In addition, Bakhurin inherited the Department of Mining Surveying at the Mining Institute from his senior colleague, a position he would lead for 17 years.
Even before the revolution, Bakhurin began focusing on creating an effective surveying service in Russia. However, after the end of World War I, this issue shifted from a desirable goal to a necessary one.
A significant amount of data on mines had been lost, and the authorities tasked surveyors with the rapid restoration and creation of a high-quality portfolio of mining documentation.
The sector gained strong momentum in 1928 when, "with the aim of improving surveying services in the USSR," a Permanent Commission on Surveying was established within the Scientific and Technical Council of the Mining Industry of the Supreme Soviet of National Economy (VSNKh), led by Bakhurin. Over three years, the commission conducted a thorough inspection of specialized departments at enterprises in the Donbas, the Urals, Kryvyi Rih, the Moscow Coal Basin, and the Kuzbass, then proposed a modernization plan.
Ivan Mikhailovich developed a new set of rules and regulations for surveying services at mining enterprises, established instructions for surveying, created a unified set of symbols for plans, and justified the need for the first domestic gyroscopic compasses for surveying. He managed to convey to industry professionals that the primary task of a surveyor was not simply to provide operational assistance with underground orientation or rock displacement but to plan mining operations over the long term. This approach would allow the surveyor to be responsible for how an enterprise would "look" five or more years into the future. As a result, professional surveyors began to be mandatorily involved in work from the planning stage of mines and quarries.
Alongside the growing importance of the profession, the responsibility placed upon it also increased. Bakhurin concluded that to ensure safe and efficient mining operations, ongoing high-level scientific research was essential. Thus, in 1933, he initiated the transformation of the Permanent Surveying Commission into the Central Scientific Research Surveying Bureau (TsNIMB), which he led until his last days. At the same time, he proposed the idea of establishing "Soyuzmarkstrest"—a specialized organization dedicated to conducting large-scale surveying and geodetic work.
The primary objectives of TsNIMB included developing methods and tools for surveying, geological, and geophysical support in mineral extraction technologies; calculating surface subsidence; protecting areas and structures at risk from underground mining; and forecasting and preventing gas-dynamic phenomena in mines and quarries.
Bakhurin worked tirelessly to establish and develop the bureau as a reputable scientific organization. In its early years, he opened six regional divisions for better connections with the mining areas of the country: in Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Moscow, the Urals, Western Siberia, and Eastern Siberia. These divisions addressed critical issues, such as structural damage to industrial buildings and shaft reinforcement in the Donbass, verified coal production accuracy, and managed urgent surveying work in the Korkinsky open-pit mine, among other projects.
In 1935, for his outstanding scientific achievements, Bakhurin was awarded a doctoral degree; in 1939, he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. A year later, one of the founders of Russia's surveying school passed away.
His legacy, TsNIMB, was expanded and transformed after the war into the All-Union Research Institute of Mining Geomechanics and Surveying (VNIMI). VNIMI specialists conducted extensive research across Soviet mineral deposits and developed new instruments, which were deployed in fields across Surgut, Kazakhstan, and the Vorkuta and Kuznetsk basins.
In 2005, the institute became part of St. Petersburg Mining University, Bakhurin's alma mater. The circle was completed. Today, its researchers continue to advance surveying science at the university's Geomechanics and Mining Production Problems Research Center, a structural division of the institution. The research team has been awarded State Prizes and Russian Government Prizes fourteen times.
