The success of Viktor Ragozin’s operations was very inspiring for other Russian industrialists as well. New refineries began to appear in Russia that were oriented toward the output of lubricants. In 1879, Russia had 19 such specialized refineries. All of this allowed a sharp increase in the export of lubricants. For instance, in 1881, exports to France alone amounted to 3.7 million francs, or five times more than just three years earlier.
By 1884, Russia was producing 407,098 barrels of lubricants from oil residues. Such an increase in domestic production had a dramatic effect in monetary terms as welclass="underline" from 1864–1872, Russia spent 35 million rubles on imports of lubricating oil, while in 1897 alone the value of Russian exports of lubricants totaled well over 45 million rubles.
Unfortunately, due to growing competition on the Russian market for lubricants, Viktor Ragozin struggled to stay on top, making serious financial and credit policy miscalculations that led to a sharp deterioration in the company’s financial condition, which in turn prompted the company’s shareholders to remove him from leadership of the company. Subsequently, he went to work for the S. I. Shibayev & Co. Partnership for Production of Russian Mineral Oils and Other Chemical Products, where he found success in organizing efficient production of high-quality lubricants at a refinery in Baku. His Baku product went on to receive high awards at all-Russian and international exhibitions on more than one occasion.
The First Oil Exhibition
The results achieved in Russia by the end of the decade of “oil freedom” were very impressive and beneficial for the government, the scientific community, and Russian society as a whole. The country’s production of oil grew nearly eight-fold, from 2.5 million barrels in 1878 to 19 million barrels in 1887.
Thus, it was quite natural that an important event in the history of the Russian oil industry would occur in early 1888: The first international Exhibition of Lighting and Oil Production.
Organized by the Imperial Russian Technical Society, the exhibition’s Organizing Committee was headed by Actual State Councilor Pëtr Kochubey (1825–1892), who was also the chairman of the IRTS. The exhibition’s opening ceremony took place on January 21, 1888 at the Society’s exhibition complex on Panteleymonovskaya Street in Solyanoy gorodok, a part of what is now St. Petersburg. According to the Organizing Committee’s records, the ceremony was attended by most of the exhibition’s 540 participants, who had come from 40 different countries.
At that time there were no exhibitions anywhere in the world like the St. Petersburg Exhibition of Lighting and Oil Production. It was laid out in several well-designed and clearly organized halls, and consisted of three different parts, all united by the theme of light in the daily life of people.
The inscription outside the exhibit halls reads: “Fire is one of the oldest achievements in mankind’s heritage. Starting at the beginning of his conscious existence, having barely begun the struggle for survival, mankind noticed fire in nature and was able to take control of it for his own purposes.”
The historical exposition in the first exhibition hall presented methods of lighting from all countries, times, and peoples: from the lamps of Ancient Rome and the tar torches of the French Middle Ages, all the way to an electric lighthouse in New York—the Statue of Liberty—which had opened a year before the exhibition.
A St. Petersburg newspaper described the beginning of this exposition in very picturesque terms: “Before us, a fire-breathing mountain, a forest fire, peat burning within the earth, columns of flaming oil gushing out of the earth in a fountain; these gave the primitive savage the idea of the power of fire, which crushes the darkness of night, filling the cave, ravine, dugout, or hut where he lives and works with light that would replace the Sun, Moon, and stars.”48
A prominent place in the displays was given to Ancient Roman lamps made of fired clay with images of Jupiter, Juno, Eros, and Mars, which were found in excavations close to Rome on the Appian Way and Via Latina, in Ostia, Pompeii, and elsewhere. These were followed by a sanctuary lamp with a monogram of Christ (a copy of a specimen surviving in the Vatican), dated to the first centuries of the Christian Era. An observer from one St. Petersburg publication noted with delight: “The exhibition, which is technical both in name and in content, has become an attraction for everyone interested in the history of human civilization. The organizers have made an attempt, completely in the spirit of Jules Verne, to present the path of development of lighting objects in visual terms, beginning with the pre-Christian Era.”49
The exposition would not have been complete without Russian antiquities of the 15th—17th centuries. These included the Korsun chandelier: the Candle of Veliky Novgorod (a copy of an original surviving in the vestry of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod), and a copper chandelier in the shape of a cross from Mount Athos.
Literally two steps away from the Russian exhibit, visitors were transported to the world of Central Asia. This exhibit presented a candle holder made of fired clay, which had been found in excavated ruins of buildings from the epoch of Timur in Samarkand, and charakhs (lamps) from Khujand and Samarkand made of cast iron and clay and covered with green glaze. A bronze candlestick with an ornamental design and a relief image of dragons was brought from China, and another was brought from Japan in the shape of a crane on a tortoise, along with picturesque silk lanterns and wax candles with a relief pattern.
The organizers of the exhibition understood that a demonstration of the importance of light in the history of mankind should not be limited to just exhibits, no matter how unique they might be. Thus, they commissioned the artist Pavel Grigoryev to paint pictures exclusively for the exhibition, illustrating key moments in the history of lighting based on documents surviving in the Imperial Public Library. Visitors were presented with a series of majestic canvases whose subjects included fire worshippers in Baku in 500 years BCE; vestal virgins (protectors of the fire) in Ancient Rome; Kamchadals starting fire by rubbing wood; the Colossus of Rhodes; and a night patrol with a lantern in Ancient Egypt.
The second section of the exhibition had a clear scientific and educational orientation, one aimed at making the technology behind various lighting methods accessible to the general public. Educational exhibits from Russia’s higher and secondary educational institutions invariably attracted the attention of visitors. The organizers also commissioned educational exhibits expressly for the exhibition: lamps of the French inventors Argand, Carcel, and Franchot, housed in glass shells to demonstrate their internal structure: one depicting the constant flow of lighting oil and a circular burner (end of the 18th century); one with a clock mechanism and a pump (19th century); and a moderator lamp with a spiral spring and an equalizing moving flow tube (19th century). Each exhibit was also accompanied by a large-scale sketch of the lamp to explain the various parts of the design.
The third section of the exhibition was devoted to the commercial and industrial sector, and provided an opportunity for Russian and foreign entrepreneurs to promote their companies and products. Competition among the exhibitors was fierce, with each company presenting various collections of petroleum and products made from it, pointing out in detail their consumer and technical characteristics, e.g., specific gravity, flash point and ignition temperature, color, rate of outflow, the results of fractional distillation, specimens of waste, etc.
For example, the V.I. Ragozin & Co. Partnership presented lubricants of excellent quality, as well as kerosene and products of heavy refining, including oil and gas tar. The refining plant of the Russian-American Petroleum Production Partnership (Kuskovo, Moscow Province) presented their crude oil and an assortment of products refined from it: gasoline, kerosene (American and Russian); oils of various thicknesses: lubricants, perfume oil, gas oil; oil residues, tar, artificial asphalt, sulfuric acid, and much more.