Tretyakov, Pavel Petrovich

Coming from an old noble boyar family . The son of a merchant clerk. A native of Newland province . He received his general education at the Helsingfors Alexander Alexander Grammar School ^[1] , which he graduated with a silver medal. September 1, 1881 entered the second Konstantinovsky school . For excellent study, his name was carved on the honorary marble plaque of the school, and he himself was transferred to continue his studies in the senior class of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School . After graduating from college with honors, in 1884 he was sent to the 24th artillery brigade ^[2] (where his colleague was the future inventor of the wheel machine for Maxim's machine gun , A. A. Sokolov ).

After serving four years in the army, P.P. Tretyakov continued his military education. He entered the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy in 1888 and graduated in the first category. At the end of the academy, he was awarded the "Insignia for completing the course." For his academic success in 1890, he was promoted to the rank of staff captain and appointed teacher of the training team at the 24th artillery brigade. In the same period, he transferred to the guards artillery ^[3] and in 1892 was sent to the Tula Emperor Peter the Great Arms Plant.

There he consistently held the following positions: assistant to the head of the workshop (1892–1896), head of the workshop (1896–1906), head officer for technical affairs (1906–1910), head officer for product verification (1910–1913), assistant commander of Tula Emperor Peter the Great Arms Factory on the technical side (1913-1915).

With the direct participation of P.P. Tretyakov, the plant began the successful development and organization of machine-gun production. Improvements were made to the design of the Maxim machine gun . Tretyakov personally visited the Vickers factories in England to study the technology of machine gun production and its field tests. Upon his return to Russia at his native plant, P.P. Tretyakov made many changes to the design of the machine gun and achieved the complete interchangeability of all its mechanisms. In fact, a new Russian analogue of the legendary machine gun was created. Then, based on it, “the 7.62 mm machine gun Maxim arr. 1910 " , significantly lighter than the original (weight without water 20.3 kg). He stood on the arsenal of the tsarist, and then the Red Army until the end of World War II. Subsequently, the machine gun was occasionally used in military conflicts ^[4] , and also exported, some of it was disposed of. With the collapse of the USSR, the machine gun fell on the balance of the armies of the new states that arose on the former Soviet territory ^[5] . Certain cases of the use of a machine gun were noted during the armed conflicts of the post-Soviet space ^{[6] [7]} .

In 1913, P.P. Tretyakov traveled to France to help the French gunsmiths. For this help, the French government in 1915 awarded him the country's highest award - the Commander Cross of the Legion of Honor ^[8] . The French appreciated Pavel Petrovich’s consultations on the organization of the production of light automatic machines, which he gave them in 1913 ^[9] .

In 1915, P.P. Tretyakov was appointed head of the Tula Emperor Peter the Great Arms Plant . The First World War was on . And the factory did everything possible to supply weapons to the warring Russian army. He made it at the GAU ^[10] that the students of the Tula Arms School , located in the factory’s staff and training personnel of gunsmiths, were allowed to repair damaged domestic weapons during the hostilities and preserve foreign weapons taken as trophies at the Tula arsenal. Thus, students had the opportunity to learn in practice the basics of weapons mastery. And, most importantly, at the end of the school, true gunsmiths who already had vast experience in operating weapons were sent to the troops.

P.P. Tretyakov also headed the construction of a new weapons factory (now AK Tulamashzavod ) from October 1916, where machine gun and tool production was mainly concentrated. In June 1917, Pavel Petrovich headed the commission for the preparation of the production of automatic machines of V. G. Fedorov .

P.P. Tretyakov was quite loyal to the October Revolution of 1917, but despite this he was nevertheless dismissed from the post of plant manager and in 1918 was seconded to the Kovrov Plant to accept samples of Fedorov assault rifles. Upon returning to Tula in 1920, Pavel Petrovich was appointed head of the machine gun department of the Arms Plant ^[11] .

In connection with the increase in the volume of work on the repair, restoration and modernization of hand weapons, a need arose to organize a design bureau under the TOZ. This task was set before P.P. Tretyakov. And he coped with it brilliantly. In 1927, he created the first state organization in the history of Russia for the development of small arms - the Design Bureau (PKB) of hand weapons at the Tula Arms Plant, later known as TsKB-14, and then GUP KBP .

The bureau continued to modernize Maxim's machine gun and modernized the Mosin rifle . Under P.P. Tretyakov, the development of the legendary TT pistol , as well as an airborne rapid-fire machine gun of the Shpitalnaya - Komaritsky model of 1932 ( ShKAS ), which was ahead of its time, began. This machine gun embodied unique design decisions that the world weapons community did not yet know. These decisions allowed the machine gun to become unsurpassed in rate of fire among single-barrel machine guns in the XX – XXI centuries ^[12] . With the creation of the TT pistol and the ShKAS air gun, the triumphant and legendary history of the Tula KBP began ^[13] .

In the two years that P. P. Tretyakov created and led the Design Bureau, he managed to accomplish the most important thing - he founded an arms school with its own design traditions and a close-knit team of like-minded people. All this allowed SUE “KBP” throughout its history to remain the leader in its field of arms business.

In 1929, an outstanding designer fell under the first wave of repression. He was sentenced to death, then replaced by 10 years of forced labor camps. And soon they returned to Tula, to one of the first design "scarabs" . For a whole year (1930-1931) he was forced to be in the factory under the supervision of GPU employees. Once a week, meeting with relatives was allowed. In 1931 he was completely released, but he was not returned to his previous position, they were given only the department of invention and rationalization.

Pavel Petrovich Tretyakov died on April 16, 1937 in Tula and was buried in the All Saints Cemetery of Tula .

Guards foot artillery:

• He entered the service on September 1, 1881.
• Second Lieutenant August 7, 1882
• Lieutenant August 7, 1886
• Headquarters Captain June 7, 1890
• Captain July 25, 1895
• Guard Captain May 6, 1895
• Captain December 6, 1898
• Colonel April 14, 1892
• Major General April 6, 1914

• Order of St. Stanislav 3 tbsp., 1897
• Order of St. Anne 3 tbsp.
• Order of St. Stanislav, 2nd art., 1906
• Order of St. Anne 2 tbsp.
• Order of St. Vladimir, 4th century, 1910
• Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd century, 1913
• Order of St. Stanislav 1st century, 1915
• Order of St. Anne 1st Art., 04/10/1916.
• Commander's Cross of the Legion of Honor (France), 1915
• Breastplate "In memory of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Imperial Tula arms factory by Emperor Peter the Great"
• Breastplate "In memory of the 50-year-old state of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich in the post of General-Feldzeichmeister" ^[15]

He was married with five children: three sons and two daughters.

The memory of Pavel Petrovich Tretyakov is immortalized with the following attributes:

• Gabbro board with a portrait and the inscription: “Pavel Petrovich Tretyakov, the first head of the PKB manual weapons (Design Instrument Design Bureau), an outstanding organizer of production and designer of domestic weapons.” GUP KBP through passage ^[16] .
• Bronze bust of P. P. Tretyakov on the Walk of Fame of the famous Tula gunsmiths in front of the helmet building of the Tula Museum of weapons ^[17]
• A bronze bust of P. P. Tretyakov on the Walk of Fame of the State Unitary Enterprise KBP ^[18] .
• Monument to P. P. Tretyakov at his grave ^[19] .

• G. M. Chudnov. Commander of the Legion of Honor. Popular science publication. - Tula: Grif and K, 2001 .-- 196 p. - ISBN 5-8125-0124-6 .
• State archive of the Tula region. Fund number 187 "Tula arms factory." Inventory No. 1, file No. 9697 “Lists of seniority for the head officers of the Imperial Tula Arms Plant on January 1, 1910.”
• The memorial book of the Tula province. 1898-1916
• Lists for seniority generals. 1893-1916

• Pavel Petrovich Tretyakov
• Birthday P. P. Tretyakov
• P.P. Tretyakov - creator of the Russian machine gun
• Weapons for all time
• Tretyakov, Pavel Petrovich (neopr.) . // Project "Russian Army in the Great War".