In 1768–1769, the noted natural scientist Ivan Lepëkhin (1740–1802) included a detailed description of a series of Volga oil fields in his Travelogue of a Doctor and Academy of Sciences Adjunct Through Various Provinces of the Russian State [Dnevnyye zapiski puteshestviya doktora i Akademii nauk adyunkta po raznym provintsiyam Rossiyskogo gosudarstva]. Regarding surface oil shows in the area of Samarskaya Luka and the Sok River, he wrote: “Everything was already prepared for departure when the Tatars notified us that there was a petroleum spring some 15 versts [10 miles] from their village.... Sergeant Major Kravtsov, the Tatar escorting us, stated that the residents used it to lubricate wheels.... From the village of Yakushkina, directing our wagon train by ordinary road to Sergiyevsk with one student and escort Kravtsov, we went to the so-called petroleum lake, which was some four versts [2.6 miles] from Yakushkina, beyond Shungur.”
Other Russian scientists also offered descriptions of surface oil shows in the Volga region. For instance, in a three-volume study produced after his 1768 expedition, Academician Pëtr Pallas (1741–1811)gave a detailed description of several petroleum springs around the city of Syzran and along the Shungut, Kamyshly, and Sok Rivers: “The waters of one spring empty into the Sok River. The entire low land around the lake consists of petroleum land, so that in summer, holes dug everywhere along the shore contain petroleum.” As to the use of petroleum by the local population, he wrote: “Resident Chuvashes and Tatars not only use this tarry water for gargling and drinking when suffering from oral thrush or boils in the throat, but also zealously collect the petroleum and use it in many cases as a home remedy.”
The report of a 1768–1774 expedition led by Academician Johann Falk also presents a description of petroleum sources in the area of the town of Tetyushi, comparing it to similar oil shows at other sites along the Volga.
Confidential adviser Mikhail Soymonov (1730–1804), a graduate of the Moscow Artillery School and participant in the Nercha Geologic Expedition, did much to advance the development of the Russian mining industry. Appointed in 1771 by the president of the Mining Board, he headed the mining institution for ten years and made immense contributions to the development of Russian industry.
Upon his initiative, Catherine the Great issued a decree on October 21, 1773. The decree established the St. Petersburg Mining School, which laid the foundation for the formation of a Russian system of higher mining engineering education, which in turn had a significant effect on the development of the domestic oil industry. This was Russia’s first technical institution of higher education, and a true embodiment of the great reformer Peter the Great’s idea to train domestic engineers to develop the mining and metallurgical industries.
In 1776, Soymonov was sent abroad “for medical treatment,” and in 1781 he retired temporarily “to improve his health,” and was replaced as president by the senator and confidential adviser Ivan Ryazanov. In 1781, pursuant to the “Institution for the Administration of Provinces of the All-Russian Empire” (1775), the administration of mining was transferred to the Treasury Boards under the control of the Expedition on State Revenue attached to the Governing Senate. In this new configuration, the Mining Board lost its previous importance, and in 1782 the Senate decreed “that the Treasury Boards should not send its revenues to the Mining Board.” In the same year, Catherine the Great published her Manifesto, according to which rights to the land surface were identified with rights to the subsurface, i.e., the rights bestowed by Peter the Great in the Mining Privilege of 1719 were practically eliminated. Later, in 1783, Empress Catherine the Great abolished the Mining Board. This perilous state of affairs in the mining industry lasted 16 years. It is clear now that the decision to administer the mining department through the Treasury Boards was yet another unsuccessful government experiment, one that ultimately caused a decline in the industry.
This misguided experiment ended with Emperor Paul I [Pavel Petrovich] (1754–1801), who assumed the throne in November 1796. With his decree of December 19, 1796, he reinstated the Mining Board, restoring the rights it had enjoyed before 1775, except for the advantages bestowed on nobles by the Noble Charter and Urban Statute. Under this decree, the Ural mining plants were placed under the Mining Board, and the Senate’s Expedition on State Revenue and the Treasury Boards’ Expedition for Mining Affairs were abolished.
Thus, the Mining Board resumed its activities. Actual State Councilor Andrey Nartov (1736–1813), a graduate of the cadet corps and one of the founders of the Free Economic Society, was appointed as its president. The task of “supervising the Mining Board as to mine plants and fields” was assigned to Actual Confidential Councilor and former Mining Board chief Mikhail Soymonov.
In 1798, Aleksandr Alyabyev, a skilled administrator and former Perm Province vice governor, was appointed to replace Andrey Nartov as president of the Mining Board. He tried to return to Ukhta oil fields. On August 2, 1801, the Mining Board reviewed a case concerning sparkling stones and oil fields found by collegiate assessor Pëtr Sumarokov. The grounds for this review was Sumarokov’s letter, in which he wrote, after returning from a trip through Mezen District: “At various locations, I found fields rich in oil... we collected up to 80 poods [9.6 barrels] of oil from several excavated pits, but of that 58 poods [7 barrels] were kept and delivered in winter at my own expense to the city of Mezen, and from there brought to Arkhangelsk with the permission of his Excellency the Governor General Timofey Ivanovich Tugolmin, who was administering the post at the time and at whose directive the oil was tested and found to be of the highest quality.... Through wells, up to a thousand poods [120 barrels], possibly more, can be had from these sources.”19
However, the Mining Board nevertheless limited its review of the matter to the finding of its president, Aleksandr Alyabyev, who proceeded solely from the economic assessment of the volume of oil imported into Russia: “As for oil fields on the left bank of the Ukhta River, I do not have detailed information on local conditions and cannot say how much oil production and transportation will cost, but I do not believe these fields will yield a large profit.... From the schedule compiled at the Mining Board for 1797, 1798, and 1799, which I obtained for communication of this subject, it is clear from the three-year total that only 45 poods 371/2 pounds [1,657.5 pounds] of oil, worth 111 rubles 46 kopecks, is imported annually from foreign lands to Russia, which amounts to two rubles 59 kopecks for each pood [36 pounds] (although foreign oil is always refined and therefore of higher quality than that collected directly from sources). Such small imports demonstrate that it is little used.”20
The Mining Department at the Start of the Steam and Iron Age
At the beginning of the 19th century, coinciding with the ascension to the throne of the Emperor Alexander I (1777–1825), anew chapter opened in the history of Russia’s oil industry, full of dramatic events involving many outstanding Russian entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists.
On November 19, 1801, Emperor Alexander I issued a decree to organize the “Main Expedition to Establish Mining Production in Georgia,” which was headed by Count Apollos Musin-Pushkin (1760–1805), a well-known figure active in Russian mining. An honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and a member of the Royal Society of London, he also occupied the position of vice president of the Mining Board for a number of years. As early as June 15, 1797, he sent his “Opinion about the Mining Industry” to the Mining Board, the first analytic report about the state of mining in Russia. It noted the following: “The mining industry in Russia differs noticeably from that established in foreign countries. The reasons for this difference are numerous, and have to do with the climate, the population density, the political relationships of the economy and government trade, as well as the very decrees governing the European nations that have mining.”