The first steps of electrification of Russia

Most of the adult population of Russia and other countries of the former USSR, to date, fortunately, it is known that large-scale electrification of the country is associated with the implementation of the plan of the State Electrification of Russia (GoElRo) adopted in 1920.

For the sake of justice, it should be noted that the development of this plan refers to the time before the First World War, which, in fact, prevented its adoption. But in this article we are going to talk not about this stage of the development of energy in Russia, but about the period that preceded it, when electricity only entered the everyday life of the population of large cities, and was elated by an oddity, a symbol of all-powerful progress.

It seems that many readers will be surprised, but even today in the old houses of Zamoskvorechye you can find the existing electrical wiring laid still at the turn of the 80-90s of the 19th century during the first electrification of Moscow. However, the events related to this action were also not the first milestone on the path of victorious march through the territory of the then still Russian Empire of a new driving force.

With the definition of the time of the beginning of the existence of a phenomenon, difficulties and discrepancies always arise, however, having misused our position as authors of this text, we will designate the point of the beginning of the era of electricity in Russia in 1879 (the dissenters can challenge this date, and if they do it reasonably, Then we will correct our vision of this problem).

So, this year in St. Petersburg was lit by electric light Foundry Bridge, becoming the first bridge in the world, illuminated by electricity . This event is connected with a curious story about how the City Council of St. Petersburg sold a monopoly on street lighting to private companies that covered them with the help of oil and gas lamps. The foundry bridge, as constructed after the conclusion of this treaty, did not fall under the agreement, and as a result, the electrification of the Russian capital and the empire as a whole began precisely from the bridge.

We may be objected that a year earlier, in 1878, engineer Borodin electrified the turning shop of the Kiev railway workshops , during which the workshop was illuminated by four electric arc lights. We know about this fact, but it is not chosen as the starting date because of its narrow-departmental significance and inaccessibility of the contemplation of this miracle by the general public (although it seems that there were no curiosities from the curious ones).

The next milestone on the way to introduction of new items into everyday life became on January 30, 1880 , when the electrical department of the Russian Technical Society was founded , which was called to supervise the problems of electrification of Russia. In the same year, work began to cover the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, but their volume can be considered extremely insignificant - a couple of hundred lamps for two capitals. Also in the same year in Kiev, through the lamps of Yablochkov, the workshops of the Dneprovsky Shipping Company were illuminated.

It should be noted that at this stage of electrification all electricity consumers (which were exclusively lighting devices) used direct current, and there were certain problems with the transmission of electricity over significant distances. As a result, the source of electricity was located in close proximity to the consumer. So, for example, in the case of the Kiev railway workshops, each of the four lamps had its own Gramma electromagnetic machine .

After exactly two years after the coronation in St. Petersburg of Emperor Alexander III, the celebrations on a similar occasion in Moscow on May 15, 1883 were marked by a grandiose illumination of the Kremlin. To implement this project a special power station was built on the Sophia Embankment .

In the same year, but already in the capital of the Empire the firm "Siemens and Galske" illuminates the central street of the city, and a little later the Winter Palace is electrified . According to some sources, the first, more or less large power station in Russia, with a capacity of 35 kW , is being built to implement these measures. Among other things, this power station is notable for the fact that it was located on a barge moored to the embankment of Moika near the Police Bridge.

Further mention of any major events related to electricity is not found for a number of years, until in 1886 it becomes known about the electricity coverage of the Château de Fleur park in Kiev (now the Dynamo stadium).

On July 31, 1887, the Society for Electrical Lighting, founded by Karl Fedorovich Siemens (who by that time had become Russian merchant and became a merchant of the first guild), decided to start work aimed at the practical electrification of Moscow. The implementation of these ambitious plans began with the device of electric lighting Postnikovskogo passage on Tverskaya, now the Theater. Ermolova.

In general, the Society of Electrical Lighting of 1886 , whose charter was approved on July 4, 1886 by the highest edict of Emperor Alexander Sh, played a huge role in the initial electrification of Russia. After the revolution of 1917, the nationalized capacities of this enterprise were combined into a single energy system, on the basis of which MOSENERGO is currently operating in Moscow, in particular.

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