Appendix E: Biographies

Mel’nikov

Pavel Petrovich Mel’nikov’s date of birth, place of birth, and parentage is complex (see Image 247). His date of birth is usually given as 22 July (OS) 1804. His place of birth is considered to be Moscow. His father is considered to have been Collegiate Assessor (8th grade) Petr Petrovich Mel’nikov. Pavel Petrovich stated in his service records that he was born in 1804, but nowhere indicated his place of birth nor said anything about his parents, limiting himself to the statement that he “was from the gentry class and owned no peasants.”

Baron Anton Ivanovich Del’vig (1813–1887; see Image 251), a colleague engaged in building the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway, maintained that both Pavel Petrovich and his brother, Aleksei Petrovich, were the illegitimate sons of Beklemishev, Equerry of the Royal Stables. He said Beklemishev married their mother off to a member of the gentry nobility named Petr Petrovich Mel’nikov in order to give his sons gentry rights. Petr Petrovich Mel’nikov was a widower (died before end of December 1820) and had one son from his first marriage, Aleksandr Petrovich Mel’nikov (c. 1798 – 10/22 May 1873). His second wife, according to Del’vig, met her husband-to-be for the first time at their wedding ceremony. Del’vig said nothing else about her.1

Pavel Petrovich Mel’nikov’s brother, Aleksei Petrovich (1809? – 25 April 1879), became a general in the commissary department of the army, was later commandant in Warsaw, a member of the Council of the Ministry of Transport and in his retirement a full general. He was married to Varvara Petrovna Lokhtina (d. 23 September 1878).2 Their daughter, Varvara Alekseevna, married in 1883 Grigorii Aleksandrovich Pushkin (1835–1905), son of Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (1799–1837), Russia’s greatest poet.

Their mother’s husband’s son, Aleksandr Petrovich, administered the construction section in the Second Department and the section of the Imperial Carriage Establishment in the Office of the Imperial Stables.3 He was married to Nadezhda Filipovna Viktorova, whose father, F.A. Viktorov, was head of the Imperial Carriage Establishment. Beklemishev was the superior of F.A. Viktorov and Aleksandr Petrovich Mel’nikov and a difficult one until Nadezhda Filipovna Viktorova and Aleksandr Petrovich Mel’nikov married.4 They had five children: Olga (b. 14 July 1830), Aleksandra (b. 11 March 1837), Kleopatra (b. 22 September 1840), Pavel (b. 19 April 1852), and Maria (b. 22 May 1855).5

Mel’nikov entered the Moscow Gentry Pension of Vasilii Krazhev in 1818 and graduated in 1820. Early in 1821, he entered the Military-Construction School of Transport at the Petersburg Institute of the Corps of Transport Engineers, and, upon graduating in October 1822 as an ensign and first in his class (on the basis of his final examination grades), was accepted into the third year of the Institute of the Corps of Transport Engineers. In July 1825, he graduated first in his class again, with the rank of lieutenant. His name was engraved on the marble tablet in the conference hall of the Institute. He was retained by the Institute to teach applied mechanics. He also conducted annual surveying projects, which resulted in the publication of his first paper in 1832. In 1833, he was a member of the Petersburg Committee on Buildings and Hydraulic Works. The start of Mel’nikov’s teaching career coincided with the building of railroads outside of Russia. He transformed his course in applied mechanics into mechanics of railway transport and wrote an article “On Railroads,” which was published as a separate book in 1835 and for which he was awarded a diamond ring. He also served on the commission set up in order to consider F.A. Gerstner’s proposal to build a network of railways in Russia, which resulted in the building of the Petersburg–Tsarskoe Selo–Pavlovsk Railway in 1837. On 5 June 1837, Mel’nikov, who knew French, English, and German, and his student, S.V. Kerbedz (1810–1899), class of 1831, Institute of Railway Engineers, left Russia for Western Europe, where they were sent by the Institute. They spent fifteen months in France, England, Belgium, Germany, and Austria, inspecting railways, factories that built steam machines and steam engines, and large-scale engineering installations. They met with important people in the field, such as George Stephenson, and heard lectures on building and applied mechanics. On their return to Russia, Mel’nikov drew up a three-volume technical report.

On 1 June 1839, Mel’nikov and his Institute colleague, Nikolai Osipovich Kraft (1798–1857; see Image 248), sent by the Main Administration of Transport, set out for a fifteen-month stay in the United States to inspect railways and other systems of transport. In the United States, they studied railroads under construction as well as already in operation, steam engine factories, and hydrotechnical installations. They met with many well-known engineers, including Brown, Latrobe, Robinson, Swift, and Major Whistler (see Images 7–8, 21), who, they ultimately recommended, should be invited to be the consulting engineer for the building of the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway. On returning to Russia, Mel’nikov drew up a three-volume technical report from this trip as well. In 1841, Mel’nikov’s recommendations for the building of the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway were considered by an interdepartmental commission established to draw up a preliminary project for this railway. Mel’nikov and Kraft were both on the commission. In January 1842, Nicholas I called a special meeting to look at the railway project, which Mel’nikov and Kraft were not invited to attend. On 1 February 1842, a ukase was issued announcing the decision to build the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway, and Mel’nikov and Kraft were appointed heads of the Northern Administration and the Southern Administration, respectively.

In 1854, Mel’nikov was chosen to head the expedition to survey for the building of new railways: Moscow–Kharkov–Feodosia (with a branch to Sevastopol and lines to the Donbass and to Rostov-on-the-Don), and Kharkov–Odessa. In early 1857, he presented the preliminary project for the building of railway lines south of Moscow, for which he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir (2nd class). On 24 January 1855, he was appointed chief inspector of private railways and made a member of the Council of the Main Administration of Transport and Public Buildings. As a result of the opposition of private railway entrepreneurs to his attempts to establish control over surveying and planning of new railways, he refused, at the end of 1858, to continue as chief inspector. On 29 December 1858, he was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1863, he was appointed head of Transport and Public Buildings. When this department was changed in 1865 to the Ministry of Transport, he became minister. The sale of the Nikolai Railway, which took place, despite his objections, in October 1868; subsequent attacks in the newspapers about his inability to direct the building of railways; and an official examination in 1869 of the Ministry’s report for 1867, resulting in the accusation that he had done bad work, led to his removal as minister in April 1869, at his own request, on the grounds of ill health. In the 1870s, he worked in the Department of State Economy of the State Council and was chairman of the Commission for Examining the Reports of the Ministry of Transport for 1870–1875. In 1872, the Institute of Transport Engineers celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his work in the field of transport.

Mel’nikov spent his final years at Liuban’ Station of the Nikolai Railway, where he used his savings to carry out philanthropic works, such as building a home for elderly women, a school for the children of low-paid workers on the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway (by then called the Nikolai Railway), and a boarding school for orphans of employees of that railway.

He died on 22 July 1880 and was buried near Liuban’ Station. In 1955, a monument was erected to him in the square of the station for the 150th anniversary in 1954 of his birth and his remains were transferred to this spot.

He was the author of forty-two works, both published and in manuscript form. Of his memoirs, only the first part, covering the period 1830–1842, has been preserved; a portion was published in 1938 and 1940.6

During the building of the St. Petersburg–Moscow Railway, in order to be in the midst of the work being carried out in the Northern Administration, Mel’nikov took up residence in the countryside, where he lived very simply in bachelor fashion. Baron Del’vig said he was stingy and lacked even the most elementary fastidiousness. In late autumn of 1842, when he visited Mel’nikov on an assignment, the latter was living in a two-room peasant hut; in one room there was a plain wooden table for his plans, a few very simple chairs, a couch, and a bed. Mel’nikov’s voice, Del’vig said, always dripped irony when he spoke. Mel’nikov informed Del’vig that he was not expecting such a Moscow guest and, therefore, Del’vig would have to make do with whatever the landlady was making, which was kasha and cabbage soup with beef and cockroaches, meaning by the latter the black cabbage in the soup. Mel’nikov ate with a wooden spoon but gave Del’vig a set of silver utensils, a gift from Mel’nikov’s sister-in-law. In the evening, they were given tallow candles in dirty bottles, and, as Del’vig had come without a servant, Mel’nikov laughed at the Moscow gentleman who was going to have to undress himself for bed. When Mel’nikov moved to Chudovo, Del’vig says, he occupied the upper floor of a rather large peasant hut that was decently furnished and ate fairly well, but he continued to be as stingy as before.7

Anton Shtukenberg (see Image 250), first cousin of James Whistler’s private drawing teacher, Aleksandr Osipovich Koritskii (see Images 167–170), and one of the transport engineers also engaged in building the railway, described Mel’nikov as a worldly bachelor; sociable; a fascinating talker, who, however, talked fast and monotonously; well-read; fluent in English and French. He was friendly with the young engineers and frequently gave them direct orders over the heads of the railway section chiefs, thus creating an awkward situation for the latter. The work in the Northern Administration moved along more slowly than in the Southern Administration, directed by Kraft.8 The personal stinginess Del’vig spoke of extended to Mel’nikov’s work as well: he delayed payment to contractors and at one point, along with his superior, Count Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmikhel’ (see Image 243), who was of like mind, incurred the displeasure of Nicholas I (see Images 420–423).9

Major Whistler had an excellent relationship with Mel’nikov, who not only frequented the Whistler home in St. Petersburg but brought his brother, Aleksandr Petrovich, on a visit to the Whistlers’ dacha on the Peterhof Road. They both were enchanted by a musical evening, and Debo (see Images 17–19, 21) could speak French with Aleksandr Petrovich, who did not know English. Aleksandr Petrovich’s wife, Nadezhda Filipovna (Viktorova) Mel’nikova, and a daughter (probably their eldest) visited Anna Whistler (see Images 1–5) in St. Petersburg, but unfortunately they had no language in common, as Anna Whistler was reluctant to speak French. When Anna Whistler and Willie (see Images 27, 30) joined the Gellibrand party visiting the estate and farm of Count Kushelev (see Image 302) on the Peterhof Road in the summer of 1844, Major Whistler and James (see Images 24–29) did not go because they were spending the day with Pavel Petrovich Mel’nikov. When Major Whistler was dying, he instructed Anna Whistler to give Mel’nikov his portrait and his Bible, in which he had written notes.10

Notes