I still remember, this support stood in the water on a thin barrel-like trunk. – Added Misha.
– Do you remember, the inscription, well, a sign with the inscription that it is dangerous to walk on the bridge.
– Yes, here she, lying around in the last year’s grass, fell off for a long time. – said Misha.
– Look, how everything is overgrown, soon behind these thickets and consider anything no one can. – Sasha said, examining the dilapidated wall through the young foliage growing almost to the trees of bushes on the opposite side of the moat.
– All the same it is necessary to pass. If I fail, consider it a communist, I’m going. – And Misha first bravely stepped onto the bridge. Shaky designs bent under the feet, but the guy cautiously and slowly moved forward. He ripped off his backpack in advance and held it in his hand just in case. Little by little, I crossed to the opposite side of the moat. His example was followed by Sasha. Moving, they, as if yesterday were here, confidently walked in the familiar direction to the watchtower, to what was left of it.
The boys were disappointed with the picture. The entrance to the dungeon was littered with the ruined dome-shaped ceiling of the watchtower, which from time to time collapsed and closed the entrance with a dense layer of debris from the ceiling, the burnt clay masonry…
Author’s note:
“Even in the distant 1979, the scientists of the Sverdlovsk Architectural Institute, according to the instructions of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, modern geophysical methods investigated these ruins, but there was no dungeon with melting furnaces, but an underground passage was found that led to the basement of the Demidov Tower and the plant.”
Chapter – 8.
In 1697, on a hot August day, Peter I arrived in Amsterdam to study shipbuilding at the East India Shipyard. Its main goal was to learn how to build ships to create a navy fleet. At the same time, his goal was also to find craftsmen and masters for the smelting of metal ores for military purposes. But with the second task, the problem was not the desire, neither the Dutch nor the British to send their masters to raise the iron-ore industry of Russia and at the same time create this and the military power of Russia. And with the first problem, not everything was smooth, since the Dutch shipbuilders built their ships on a whim without drawings, which prevented Peter from building his fleet in Russia.
In the evenings sitting in his apartment in Amsterdam, he wrote in his heart: “It was very disgusting for him that he perceived such a long way for this, but did not reach the desired end.” He ordered an order to Moscow to subordinate the Dutch masters at the Voronezh shipyard to the Venetian and Danish masters. Further from Moscow came a letter from a merchant and breeder, of Dutch origin, Andrei Denisovich Vinius:
“… It is better than that ore to be not possible and in the whole world, there is so rich that out of a hundred pounds of ore comes forty pounds of cast iron.” Please, please, undermine the ambassadors to find iron masters of good, able to do steel … “Vinius also reported that a magnetic The ore in the Urals was discovered by blacksmiths master Nikita Demidovich Demidov.
Demidov Nikita became known to Peter I in that he repaired the German pistol to the vice chancellor of Petro’s associate Peter Baron Pyotr Pavlovich Shafirov’s, who was on the Tsar’s affairs at the arms factory in Tula. And not only repaired, but made an exact copy of such weapons of improved design. On the recommendation of Shafirov’s, Peter I made an order in 1696 to Demidov Nikita to make 200 rifles on a German model, which was completed in a month. Peter, before making this order, arrived in Tula and at a meeting with the master, said Nikita:
“You’ll make two hundred guns in a month’s time; I’ll allocate a subsidy from the treasury for the construction of an arms factory.” (Russian archive, 1878 – Book 2-No.5-P.119—124 // Traditions about Demidov and Demidov factories).
Demidov carried out the order and in a month gave the tsar instead of the ordered 200, 300 guns, and exact copies from the foreign model provided by Peter I. The tsar lent from the Treasury Nikita Demidov the construction of an arms factory, which was built on a site designated for this construction. Thus, Nikita Demidov became the main supplier of weapons for the tsarist army of Peter’s times.
Failures with the hiring of iron making masters abroad pushed Peter I to the necessity of training his Russian masters of metallurgy. And Shafirov’s gun, and a shotgun pattern on which Demidov made 300 rifles, were produced in the arms factories of Saxony. In 1698, Tsar Peter I. visited Saxony and also got acquainted with the organization of mining in Freiberg. Here the son of Demidov Nikita, Akinfiy Nikitich Demidov, was sent to Saxony with other children. Before leaving Akinfiya abroad, the son had a long conversation with his father:
“Write it all down, as I told you.” There, silver is melted from the ore, as it is done you must know. And remember that with the copper smelting enriched by smelting; the still not purified red copper comes out. There can be contained in a hundred pounds of red copper to five pounds of gold and silver. Remember that your main task is not to give out why you are recovering there. In addition, that you will learn copper smelting; learn in great detail, from red copper, how to get silver and gold. Saxons have poor copper ore and do not contain enough of these compounds. But the methods should be described in their textbooks. Try to buy these books, well, find out how it’s done, sort of for the general development. “I spoke instructively to my 19-year-old son Nikita.
– Yes, I understood, my father understood. I will be more attentive than ever. – The tone that Akinfiy answered, not really liked Nikita. My son studied with his father and, it seems, was what. His metallurgy was very interested. He himself aspired to what Demidov the Elder had told him, and if they say the same thing several times in a row, he did not like Akinfiy. But the trip abroad attracted an inquisitive young man and also the learning process. But Nikita hoped that his son, at least, would learn something about the process of extracting precious metals from the ores, as a side effect in the process of smelting the base metal. On this, they decided that Demidov the Younger would write down in detail the processes that contribute to the basic melting. Demidov the Younger answered his father:
– There, in the books, everything is described in detail. “Trying to distract my father from the conversation,” said Akinfius.
– In books, then in books, but everywhere there are secrets, which the masters are not in a hurry to share with anyone. And I myself know that what comes by skill and skill is not recorded, but is passed from father to son and stored under seven locks inside the family. Therefore, share a sincere acquaintance with the master, that owns the art of mining precious metal and take over the experience, remember everything, maybe without writing down, so that no one knows that we will be smelting here…
Peter I was still at the shipyards of Amsterdam, when Andrei Denisovich went to Germany with ten young men to train them from foreign craftsmen of the arts. Vinius wrote to Peter in detail about his request to send young men to study in Saxony, including the 19-year-old Akinfiya, the son of the weapons business of Master Nikita Demidov. In total, 50 children from families of boyars, wealthy merchants and industrialists were selected to study crafts abroad…
– Damn! – Sasha exclaimed in his heart. – Everything is lost. Probably overloaded, here and a brigade of loaders can not do. – Inspecting the dam, commented Sasha.
“Look, the whole ceiling with the dome crashed.” Wow! – Looking
