Artamonov's bike

According to legend, the inventor got from the Ural workers' village of the Nizhny Tagil plant (now the city of Nizhny Tagil ) to Moscow by rafting , and from the embankment on its own to the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin . On this journey, the serf Artamonov was sent by his owner, the owner of the factory, who wanted to surprise Tsar Alexander I with a “strange scooter ”. For the invention of the bicycle, Artamonov with his entire family and all his offspring was granted freedom from serfdom .

The first mention of Artamonov is contained in the book of the Ural economist Belov “ Historical outline of the Ural mining plants ” (St. Petersburg, 1896 ), where without reference to sources it is reported that

The historian and geographer I. Ya. Krivoshchekov in 1910 included this information with reference to Belov in his Dictionary of the Verkhotursky Uyezd of the Perm Province , correcting the name of the emperor, since in 1801 it was not Paul I who was crowned, but Alexander I. Since 1922, a metal spider bike was exhibited in the Nizhny Tagil Museum-Reserve as an Artamonov bicycle.

In the course of the “ struggle against cosmopolitanism ”, a campaign began to search for “Russian priorities” in all areas of science and technology. By the way, there was a legend composed by local historians ^{[1] [2]} .

Information about Artamonov appeared in 1948 with the release of the book by V. V. Danilevsky “Russian Technique”, where it was said: “At the same time, the serf master Artamonov worked in Nizhny Tagil , about whom stories have been preserved about how he came from the Urals to Moscow for the coronation of Alexander I on a two-wheeled iron bicycle, invented by him long before the West came up with a similar idea . " Then Artamonov got to TSB , in which he was attributed (with a false reference to Danilevsky) the manufacture of several more bicycles:

Here he "appeared" first name and patronymic (Efim Mikheevich) and dates of life ( 1776 - 1841 ), (for the first time - in the biographical dictionary of the Sverdlovsk professor, doctor of historical sciences A. G. Kozlov, without reference to sources; directly from there - at 3 TSB Edition ^[3] ). In the future, the biography of Artamonov is overgrown with new details: in the 1950s and 1960s, Perm local historian A.K. Sharts declared Yefim and his father Mikhey “skilled builders of barges” and said that Yefim “in addition to the bicycle, invented a pump for pumping water on barges and self-propelled carriage “, a prototype car, only with a steam engine, which, as you know, was used to transport goods at the Nizhny Tagil factories” ^[4] . In addition, he reported the exact dates of the run. Finally, S. Okhlyabinin ( 1981 ) reported a different version: according to him, Artamonov was sent into exile for self-will and "unreasonable waste of wood and iron."

In the cities of Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Tagil in the 21st century, monuments to the bicycle inventor Artamonov were erected ^[5] .

The first articles appeared in the 1980s , casting doubt on the historicity of Artamonov. Searches in archives did not give any information about him. The home-made bike turned out to be made of open-hearth steel , that is, not earlier than the 1870s, according to the then English models. However, information was discovered about the Tagil serf mechanic Yegor Kuznetsov-Zhepinsky , who invented horse-drawn musical shakes with a verstomer and organ and presented them to the coronation of Alexander I, the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna , for which he was released with the whole family. Together with Egor in Moscow was his nephew, locksmith Artamon Kuznetsov, who, although he “didn’t do any work against him anyway, didn’t do any work with him,” he also received “free” with his family. It is believed that this event is the historical seed of the legend ^{[1] [2]} .

No mention of Artamonov could be found either in the camera-and-furrier ceremonial magazines of 1796 , 1797 and 1801 , nor in the "agenda on the death of His Imperial Majesty Emperor Pavel Petrovich", nor in the description of the coronation of His Imperial Majesty Alexander Pavlovich, nor in " The list of all the favors poured out by the late sovereign Paul I on the day of his coronation on April 5, 1797 ”, neither in the archives of the office of N. N. Novosiltsev, created in 1801 and engaged in the consideration of technical inventions, nor in the selection of materials about serf inventors, published in the " Domestic Notes " P. P. Svinin ( 1818 - 1830 ). No other documents were found that would confirm Belov’s story ^{[6] [1] [2]} .

In 1986-1987, a metallographic analysis of metal samples was carried out (the first was cut off from the rim of an Artamon bicycle wheel and the second from demidov iron with the CCNAD mark) in two laboratories - at the Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant and in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg ). The head of the laboratory of metal science of the Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Combine, M.A. Istanbul, and a laboratory employee, E. S. Kapustina, carried out chemical analysis and microanalysis of a sample cut from the wheel of an Artamon bicycle and a sample with the stigma of the 18th-19th centuries. The identity of the test samples was not confirmed. Based on the analysis by the candidate of technical sciences N. A. Mezenin, the following conclusion was made: the metal of the wheel was smelted in an open-hearth furnace on an acidic hearth . For reference: the first open-hearth furnace was put into operation at the Nizhny Tagil factories in 1876.

An additional analysis of the percentage of nitrogen in the studied metal samples was carried out at the Ural Research Institute of Ferrous Metals under the direction of S. B. Shubina. The final conclusion on the basis of the analysis was made by a metallurgical engineer, Doctor of Economics, Professor V. I. Dovgopol: “It can be argued that the existing bicycle model was made of open-hearth metal no earlier than the 70s of the XIX century.” So, the results of metallographic analysis and the lack of documentary sources confirmed that the bicycle, exhibited earlier in the Nizhny Tagil Museum of History and Local Lore, and now in the Cherepanovs House-Museum , is not an original model of the beginning of the 19th century or its copy.

The metallographic analysis was organized by T.V. Komshilova (Smirnova), a researcher at the Nizhny Tagil Museum. The results of the analysis were published by T. V. Komshilova and S. A. Klat in the article “Artamonov’s Bicycle: Legends and Documents” (Tagil Worker newspaper, March 14 and 18, 1987), the analysis findings were published in the article “How are they myths in history ”in the journal“ Issues of the History of Natural Science and Technology ”for 1989 (authors V. S. Virginsky, G. N. List, S. A. Klat and T. V. Komshilova) ^{[1] [6]} .

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• Komshilova (Smirnova) Tatyana, Klat Svetlana. Artamonov’s bicycle: legends and documents // Tagil Worker: newspaper. - Nizhny Tagil, 1987 .-- March 14, 18.
• Virginsky V., List G.N., Klat S.A., Komshilova T.V. How myths are created in the history of technology. On the history of the issue of the “Artamonov bicycle” // Questions of the history of natural science and technology : journal. - 1989. - No. 1 . - S. 150-157 .
• Ganzha Sergey. The history of a hoax // Tagil worker: newspaper. - Nizhny Tagil, 2005 .-- July 6, 27.
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• From the history of the bicycle (neopr.) . IronHorse.ru .