Aleksander Veniaminovich Bari (May 6 ( 18 ), 1847 - April 6 ( 19 ), 1913 ) - American and Russian engineer , entrepreneur and public figure, creator of the first engineering company in Russia . A close friend of Vladimir Shukhov , Leo Tolstoy , Dmitry Mendeleev , Nikolai Zhukovsky , Pyotr Khudyakov , Fedor Shekhtel and Ivan Rerberg .
| Alexander Veniaminovich Bari | |
|---|---|
| English Alexander V. Bari | |
 | |
| Date of Birth | May 6 (18), 1847 |
| Place of Birth | Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire |
| Date of death | April 6, 1913 (aged 65) |
| Place of death | Moscow , Russian Empire |
| Citizenship |  USA |
| Education | Zurich Polytechnic School |
Biography
Alexander Veniaminovich Bari was born on May 6 ( 18 ), 1847 in St. Petersburg and was the second son in the family. According to family tradition, the boy was named after the German encyclopedist Alexander Humboldt , who patronized his father , a well-educated baptized Jew of a difficult fate [1] .
In 1862, his father, then in correspondence with Karl Marx , was forced to emigrate with his wife Henrietta Sergeevna and children to Swiss Zurich , and in 1865 to the USA. Alexander remained in Switzerland and in 1867 graduated from high school. In 1870 he received a diploma in civil engineering, graduating from the Zurich Polytechnic School , which he entered against his father’s will. In the years of study, he met with an internship there F.E. Orlov . Fedor Yevpilovich characterized young Bari as the leader of the student fraternity, who introduced him to the Polytechnic School and the city. In particular, he told how they examined the factory, with the son of the owner of which Bari made an acquaintance the day before in a cafe [2] .
By then, the Bari family was already living in America. After completing his studies, he decided to move to them. There was no money for the journey, so Bari got a job as an assistant mechanic on the ship [3] .
Arriving in the United States, Bari accepted American citizenship and began working as an assistant engineer at the bridge and engineering plants in Detroit , and later as an engineer at a technical office in Philadelphia . Soon he won the competition for the construction of the pavilions of the World Exhibition in Philadelphia and received the Gold Medal [4] .
A delegation from Russia also came to the exhibition. Bari met with a group of teachers and specialists from the Imperial Moscow Technical School (IMTU), which included professors F. Orlov, P. Panayev, F. Ashlyman, mechanical engineers V. Shukhov , V. Malyshev, D. Sovetkin [4] . Bari provided various assistance to Russian engineers in the procurement of laboratory equipment, machine tools and tools. In recognition and “in accordance with Mr. Bari’s readiness to be useful to the technical school for the future” , in 1877 he was elected a corresponding member of the IMTU pedagogical council [5] .
In Philadelphia, Bari met with Eda von Grunberg (Zinaida Yakovlevna), his future wife. She was born in a German family who moved to Russia under Catherine II . She arrived in Philadelphia with her older sister Vera, who married her older brother Alexander [3] . Zinaida wanted to return home to Russia, and in the summer of 1877, the Bari couple with their daughter Anna moved to St. Petersburg, while retaining American citizenship [5] .
Together with his younger brother William, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Mining Institute , Alexander created a small enterprise for the design and manufacture of electric motors , the products of which turned out to be unclaimed in Russia. Bari's further steps in the field of entrepreneurial activity were determined by his acquaintance with Nikolai Sytenko, a retired lieutenant colonel engineer and member of the Imperial Russian Technical Society . Bari and Sytenko created the company "Bari, Sytenko and Co.", which was engaged in the construction of facilities of the Russian oil industry . The Bari family soon moved to Moscow [4] .
Kuskovsky Plant
Alexander Bari ( 1880s )
Ludwig Nobel (brother of Alfred Nobel ), whom N. Sytenko knew well, was in charge of the management and implementation of the Bari, Sytenko and Co. projects. The company was to organize oil production in Grozny and Baku . A young engineer V. G. Shukhov , with whom Bari was already familiar, was involved in the implementation of a complex project. The brilliantly executed project by Bari-Sytenko Company allowed the Nobel brothers to establish Branobel , which became one of the best oil companies not only in Russia but also in Europe [6] .
In the autumn of 1878, the Balakhany-Black City oil pipeline about 10 km long and a pipe diameter of 76 mm was put into operation on the Absheron Peninsula ; in 1879, the second Russian pipeline for G. M. Lianozov and Co., about 14 km long [4] .
On September 13, 1880, A. Bari, N. Sytenko, and titular adviser N. Rubinsky filed a petition with the office of the Moscow Governor General: “ On permitting the construction and opening of an oil refinery in Moscow County .” The document was signed on November 19, and soon a Russian-American Oil Production Partnership was established to manage the operation of the refinery. The construction of the enterprise was led by V. Shukhov [4] . The Kuskovo plant consisted of eight oil distillation cubes producing kerosene , astrolin, lubricating oil and mineral tar [5] .
Production began on June 8, 1881. According to an eyewitness who described the plant:
| It is located in Vykhinsky volost, in the parish of Kuskovo, on its own land of the Partnership, adjacent to the canvas of the Nizhny Novgorod railway. Oil is transported along the Volga River from Baku to Nizhny Novgorod, and from there by tanks to the Kuskovskaya platform by rail ... There are several pressurized tanks in the yard of the refinery, dug into the ground and containing 5,000 buckets of oil each. The plant employs 15 people [4] . |
At the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition in 1882, the products of the Kuskovsky plant received a bronze medal "for oil products of very good quality . " Since June 1882, Dmitry Mendeleev became a consultant to the plant on issues of technical and chemical production; he managed to introduce a new method for continuous oil distillation at the enterprise. In the same year, Bari sold his share of the shares of the Kuskovsky plant to the entrepreneur Peter Gubonin [4] and started his own business.
Bari Engineer Construction Office
Back in 1880, Bari founded a company under the name "Technical Office of the Engineer A.V. Bari" (later - "Construction Office of the Engineer A.V. Bari"), where he invited V.G. Shukhov to the post of chief engineer and technical director. The office provided technical services from the preparation of the construction project to its construction and soon became known in the Russian Empire and abroad [4] .
A few years later, the company manufactured the first sample of a new steam boiler designed by engineer Vladimir Shukhov. In order to establish serial production of efficient steam plants, a decision was made to build an enterprise called the A. V. Bari Boiler Plant . The plant was built in February 1884 in the Simonovo settlement near the Tyufelovoy grove . So, 5 years after its founding, the Bari office owned a boiler plant near Moscow and had branches in St. Petersburg, Kharkov , Nizhny Novgorod and Yekaterinburg [4] .
At his enterprise, Bari introduced a “completely new system of working life”: workers' wages were on average 10% higher than in other factories, the working day was shorter, and meals were provided at the expense of the employer. Particular attention was paid to the health of workers - the sick person continued to receive full wages during the first week. The office also manufactured metal oil tanks. Over 30 years, 3240 such tanks were produced [5] .
Since 1885, the company participated in the creation of the Volga oil fleet at its own shipyards in Saratov and Tsaritsyn . By order of shipowners Baranov and Shitov, two metal oil barges with a carrying capacity of 40 and 50 thousand pounds were built [4], respectively.
Other facilities were also built: oil pipelines , grain elevators , railway bridges , hyperboloid mesh towers , metal mesh ceilings. Since 1892, the office of A. V. Bari took an active part in the development of the network of Russian railways [4] . In 1896, the company participated in the Nizhny Novgorod All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition , where several of its pavilions were presented [3] .
The “Construction Office of the Bari Engineer” took part in the reconstruction of the Mytishchi water supply system and in the construction of the Mytishchi carriage-building plant [7] .
Personal life
Frequent guests of the family of Alexander Veniaminovich Bari were the most educated people of that time: D.I. Mendeleev , N.E. Zhukovsky S.A. Chaplygin , F.O. Shekhtel , I.I. Rerberg and others. Since 1884, Bari lived in house number 24 on Myasnitskaya street , and later in house number 22, next door. [8] .
In 1898, Bari met with L.N. Tolstoy . Together with his daughter Anna, he visited the writer in Khamovniki [5] .
Not easy times were brewing in Russia, and Bari told his wife: “Let's leave, it's better to be a tram conductor in Zurich than a millionaire in Russia.” In September 1905, he wrote: “It’s sad now in Russia, but you have to sit and endure” [9] . After the assassination attempt in August 1906 on the head of the Council of Ministers P. A. Stolypin, Bari writes to his friends: “Darkness and horror are ahead, the picture is sad” [9] .
Despite all efforts, it was not possible to save the company from shocks. Workers from nearby factories incited Bari office workers to go on strikes and participate in the gatherings of revolutionaries. Things were not going well. In 1909, A.V. Bari retired due to illness and his son Viktor Aleksandrovich became the manager of the plant. After the death of Alexander Bari, the company was inherited by Zinaida Yakovlevna, and their son Vladimir Alexandrovich headed it [10] .
Alexander Veniaminovich Bari died on April 6, 1913. He was buried in the German cemetery [10] .
The next day, the newspaper “ Morning of Russia ” wrote:
| In Moscow, A.V. Bari set up a Russian-American company of a kerosene plant, established the Moscow oil industry island in Grozny, Mytishchi Carriage Building Plant, and built a model boiler plant near Simonov Monastery. The organization of Bari’s “business” was so vast and interesting that he could build at the same time: bridges in Orenburg, steel barges on the Danube and steam locomotive workshops in Vologda. |
| Under different conditions, in another country A.V. Bari would have become Pirpont Morgan or the steel king - Carnegie, but he was Russian in spirit, loved his homeland and, turning tens of millions, gave the lion's share of his income to his employees, workers and so generously helped the poor that his fellows literally numbered in the hundreds ... |
On April 28, 1918, the newspaper Izvestia published an article exposing the counter-revolutionary conspiracy led by Vladimir Bari. Under this pretext, he was arrested. In prison, F. Dzerzhinsky himself interrogated him. The US consul rescued Vladimir from prison as an American citizen. After his release, Vladimir went abroad, and soon Victor Bari emigrated with his family [10] .
The daughter of Alexander Veniaminovich Olga Bari-Eisenman ( 1879 - 1954 ) was a talented artist and was a member of the World of Art group. She lived all her life in the USSR , but practically was not exhibited [11] .
Notes
- ↑ Shukhov, 2003 , p. 35.
- ↑ Shukhov, 2003 , p. 35-36.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Bari Alexander Veniaminovich . My Moscow. Date of treatment November 30, 2011. Archived on September 5, 2012.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Alexander Matveychuk. Russian american. Alexander Bari - founder of the first Russian engineering firm // Oil of Russia. - 1999. - February ( No. 2 ).
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 ≡ Kurilla, Ivan Ivanovich . Russian-American stories . LiveJournal (July 16, 2011). Date of treatment November 30, 2011. Archived on September 5, 2012.
- ↑ Ekaterina MAKAROVA. Founder of Russian engineering (Inaccessible link) . Moscow Industrial Newspaper. Date of treatment November 30, 2011. Archived on August 5, 2013.
- ↑ Foundation of the Car Building Plant . Mytischi "City of Advertising". Date of treatment November 30, 2011. Archived on September 5, 2012.
- ↑ V. Sorokin. Myasnitskaya street // Science and life . - 2000. - No. 11 .
- ↑ 1 2 Maslov V.I. will devote to the Fatherland ... - M. , 2001. - S. 3-21.
- ↑ 1 2 3 M. Chusova. Bari Engineer Plant in Simonova Sloboda // Moscow Journal. - M. , 2003.
- ↑ Bari-Ayzenman Olga Aleksandrovna . ARTRU.info. Date of treatment November 30, 2011. Archived on September 5, 2012.
Literature
- Maslov V.I. The past days are human destinies. - Mytishchi, 2003.
- About A.V. Bari and family history see: Velchinskaya, O.A. Apartment number 2 and its surroundings: Moscow assorted. - M .: Russian Way, 2009 .-- 416 p. - ISBN 978-5-85887-317-4 . ; journal option (in abbreviation): Velchinskaya, O.A. Apartment No. 2 and surroundings. (Moscow assorted) // Our heritage: a magazine. - 2007. - No. 83–84 .
- E. M. Shukhova. Ch. 4. Alexander Veniaminovich Bari // Vladimir Grigorievich Shukhov. The first engineer of Russia . - Publishing house of MSTU. N.E. Bauman , 2003 .-- S. 35-37. - 368 p. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 5-7038-2295-5 .
Links
- Media files related to Alexander Veniaminovich Bari in Wikimedia Commons
- Engineer A.V. Bari Plant in Simonova Sloboda