First Domestic Asphalt Paving Companies

Full text / tables, figures

Introduction

Relevance. This article is the continuation of the work published in 2023 about St. Petersburg pavements in the XVIII–XIX centuries¹. It examines the period of wide application of asphalt in road construction in the Russian capital in the last third of the XIX – early XX century. Undoubtedly, the experience of the city authorities of the Russian Empire capital in maintaining road infrastructure has not lost its relevance. Although in modern Russia the practice of competitive selection of private firms and companies in the construction of new roads and fixing of old ones has changed, many elements of holding tenders have still been preserved.

The purpose of the study is to determine the degree of development of the asphalt production industry and methods of attracting firms and companies to the production of road surfaces in the cities of the Russian Empire.

Elaboration of the problem and source base. In recent decades, historical urban studies have become an increasingly popular area of research^[2]. It should be admitted that in domestic historiography there are no works on the history of asphalt concrete pavements in St. Petersburg in the last third of the XIX – early XX century. For this reason, when writing this article, the author had to rely entirely on the archival documents stored in the funds of the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg and the Russian State Historical Archive.

Although asphalt work in St. Petersburg was performed by different companies, the author examines the activities of only a few large enterprises that specialized in road paving. During the early 1870s, in St. Petersburg, Warsaw and other cities of the empire, there began to operate domestic firms carrying out small orders for paving courtyards and indoor premises. From 1870 such work was carried out by the trading house “Zhdanovich, Tsverchakevich and C^o.” in St. Petersburg and the company “Gonsiorovsky, Tsverchakevich and C^o.” in Warsaw. The former entered into a contract for maintaining an asphalt pavement on Inzhenernaya Street of the capital, and in 1870, both companies jointly asphalted a small area there in Solyony Gorodok.

This work were carried out as a promotional event in order to draw the attention of the authorities to the new, more advanced asphalt paving methods. From May 15 to August 1, 1870, in the capital there was held the XIV All-Russian Manufacturing Exhibition. There were presented the achievements of domestic trade, industry, science, and technology there. The exhibition pavilions were located in Solyony Gorodok on the Fontanka embankment, opposite the Summer Garden. For convenience, the city authorities decided to expand the embankment and fix the pavement. The companies mentioned above proposed to asphalt this pavement at their own expense as a demonstration. Following the completion of the work, the firms announced that they were ready to publicly test this pavement for strength, and during the demonstration tests, a cannon with a carriage from the Obukhov plant weighing up to 2 thousand poods passed along the asphalt pavement, without making any cracks, potholes, or even ruts forming. A loaded truck with horses easily transported 230 poods along the asphalt pavement, “with relative comfort, quiet driving, and the safety of the carriages and horses’ legs.”³ The exhibition organizers highly appreciated the work done and awarded the companies with awards and medals. The pavement also made a positive impression on Alexander II, who visited the exhibition on June 30, 1870.

However, the members of the city government expressed doubt that the asphalt pavement would withstand long-term use in harsh climatic conditions, given the frequent use of horse-drawn vehicles. To test the effectiveness of asphalt pavements, on behalf of the city government, a proposal was sent to the trading house “Zhdanovich, Tsverchakevich and C^o.” to asphalt one of the city’s busy streets as a donation to the city to see the durability of this pavement. On March 12, 1871, the company agreed at its own expense to asphalt the section of the Fontanka embankment between the Semenovsky and the First Engineering bridges on an area of over 800 square sazhens. When concluding the contract, the company undertook to maintain this section in good condition, carrying out the necessary fixing work over the next decade. The city authorities transferred annually to the enterprise's account an amount equal to what was spent annually on fixing the previous pavement. This pavement endured over a decade and was the best pavement in the city. This section of the embankment became one of the favorite places for the residents’ walks. The traffic of carriages and various vehicles along it was also quite heavy. 

Partnership association for asphalt work production in Russia

In 1871, the trading houses “Zhdanovich, Tsverchakevich and C^o” and “Gonsiorovsky, Tsverchakevich and C^o.” with the participation of Rear Admiral Pavel Nilovich Abaleshev, State Councillor Alexander Vladimirovich Lokhvitsky, engineer-lieutenant colonel Alexander Gerasimovich Khmelyov, engineer-captains Mikhail Alexandrovich Petrov and Nikolai Matveevich Gorbenko, as well as the owner of asphalt mines in Limmer, Prussian citizen August Egestorf, decided to create a new enterprise called “Partnership association for asphalt work production in Russia.” All the necessary documents for its establishment were submitted to the Minister of Finance, who wrote on this occasion to the Minister of the Interior as follows:

The trading houses at the companies “Zhdanovich, Tsverchakevich and C^o” in St. Petersburg, “Gonsiorovsky, Tsverchakevich and C^o” in Warsaw, Rear Admiral Abaleshev, Actual State Councillors Lokhvitsky and Durasov, engineer-lieutenant colonel Khmelyov and other persons, planning to establish a partnership association on shares for the production of asphalt work in Russia, as well as for the sale of Russian asphalt abroad, submitted to the Ministry of Finance a draft statute of the partnership association and asked for the establishment of this enterprise. Upon consideration of the said project, at the Ministry of Finance, by agreement with the founders, there were made necessary amendments and additions, for determining the rules, and for coordinating with the recently approved statutes of similar enterprises⁴.

Minister of Finance M.Kh. Reytern found it possible to establish such a partnership association and sent a draft statute to the Ministry of the Interior. After resolving a number of legal issues, the statute of this enterprise was approved on November 26, 1871. The board of the partnership association consisted of six directors elected by the shareholders; the fixed capital amounted to 150 thousand rubles, divided into 300 shares of 500 rubles each⁵. Among the shareholders of this enterprise were numerous well-known people of Russia. Thus, A.V. Lokhvitsky a prominent lawyer, a brilliant expert on Russian law, and A.A. Porokhovshchikov, a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, who in the 1870s laid Limmer asphalt on the pavement in front of his “Slavic Bazaar” restaurant in Moscow, were both involved in the project.

At the general meeting of the shareholders on December 28, 1871, the following people were elected directors of the board: P.N. Abaleshev, M.I. Zhdanovich, S.M. Tsver- chakovich, A.A. Porokhovshchikov, M.P. Petrovsky, and A.G. Khmelyov. P.N. Abaleshev was elected Chairman of the Board, S.M. Tsverchakevich – the managing director, and M.I. Zhdanovich – the work supervisor. The meeting accepted from the trading house “Zhdanovich, Tsverchakevich and C^o” all its dealings and property, as well as contracts with A.E. Egestorf who owned the Limmer mines.

As the legal successor of the trading house “Zhdanovich, Tsverchakevich and C^o,” the partnership association continued to maintain the section of the Fontanka embankment between the Semenovsky and First Engineering bridges. However, in 1872, disputes arose between the company management and the city’s economic and construction commission regarding the payment of funds for the maintenance of this part of the street. The commission required proof from the partnership association that the trading house had transferred these rights to it. For this reason, in the first year of the partnership association activities the city authorities constantly failed to make payments for the operation of this part of the street in the amount of 2,213 rubles and 43 kopecks per year. This amount was to be repaid annually in two payments, but even after the disputes regarding this section were resolved, payments were often left in arrears. Nevertheless, on October 14, 1876, the city government decided to extend the contract for the operation of this section with the payment of 5,200 rubles per year. The term of the contract was for the duration of nine years, starting from January 1, 1877. If for some reason the contract was not extended, the partnership association was obliged to bring the pavement to its previous condition. During the operation of the pavements, mutual claims arose from time to time between the partnership association and the city government. Police officers and authorized commissioners reported to the city authorities that the partnership association failed to promptly remove snow in winter and garbage in summer. In particular, in 1884, Commissioner Schultz reported to the city government that along the Fontanka embankment from the Circus to the Summer Garden there were big snowdrifts and a lot of broken ice⁶. There were also complaints against the city authorities which poorly monitored the work of various contractors on asphalt streets. Thus, when installing lights and fixing them, the Gas Society often damaged the pavement forcing the partnership association to incur extra costs for troubleshooting issues.

By the beginning of the 1880s, this enterprise had already acquired significant experience in paving the streets of the cities located in different climatic zones: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov, and Odessa among others. Over the decade of its existence, the partnership association performed work worth 300 thousand rubles. However, it did not receive subsidies from either the government or the city authorities. It is noteworthy that the experience of asphalting in different climatic zones of Russia was used by engineers in England and Canada, and the success in paving roads and sidewalks in these countries prompted English firms to buy up almost all asphalt mines in Europe. Over the first decade, the partnership association was forced to import this material from Europe, but as domestic deposits were developed, it began to use Russian asphalt. The deposits found in the Caucasus and the shores of the Caspian Sea contained asphalt, which did not tolerate temperature changes well. The mines of the Volga basin, especially in the Simbirsk province turned out to be most suitable for the Russian climate; the asphalt was of sufficient quality, only slightly inferior in its characteristics to the materials from the deposits in Switzerland, but it was much better than asphalt from Germany. In 1874 the partnership association leased Bakhilovsky mines in Syzran uyezd for 25 years with the right to extend the lease for another 25 years. There was built a tar production plant with a 12-horsepower steam boiler. In addition, the plant had 14 small boilers and 2 iron cylinders, 5 wooden vats, gas pipes and other equipment. Tar was sold by the company for 1 ruble 50 kopecks per pood, while the foreign one cost 3 rubles.

In the late 1870s, the industrial activity of the Partnership association for asphalt work production in Russia increased significantly. There was not enough own capital to do asphalt work in St. Petersburg and other cities. Meanwhile, following the emergence of a number of new enterprises in Russia, the competition intensified. On July 26, 1878, the partnership association first applied to the State Bank for a loan for working capital. However, due the absence of real estate, it turned out to be impossible to get a loan. The partnership association made a second attempt on September 12, 1894, asking for 10 thousand rubles under solo bills secured by “multi-year contracts with reliable institutions and persons.” The petition described in detail the activities of the company and justified the need for a loan. Over the 23 years of its existence, this enterprise paved an area 5,334 m² in St. Petersburg with asphalt and woodblocks. In Odessa, the paved area was 3,200 m²⁷. It was apart from private orders for paving courtyards in St. Petersburg, Odessa and Moscow.

It should be noted that at the end of the XIX century the road paving of St. Petersburg streets was diverse. This is how the pavements of the Spasskaya part of the city which had 35 streets and alleys were described in 1897:

All streets, alleys and squares in the Spasskaya part are paved. The pavements are of different types: 1) asphalt on Ekaterininskaya Street – it is usually fixed every summer; on hot summer days it gets soft; in winter, due to the freezing of water in the underlying soil, the asphalt layer rises, and with the onset of warm spring days, it bursts from driving, forming cracks up to 1 inch wide; 2) block pavement – on Sadovaya Street, Karavannaya Street and Nevsky Prospekt; 3) pavement made of granite tiles – on Voznesensky Prospekt and 4) cobblestone pavement – on all other squares, streets and alleys⁸.

In 1897, Gorokhovaya Street was paved 11 arshins long and 2 arshins wide. In the Admiralty part, about 20% of the courtyards were paved with asphalt, but in the Kazansky part there were fewer than 10 courtyards with asphalt pavement. Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street was paved with asphalt on both sides, and between the asphalt and on the sides with cobblestones. Sometimes some areas were paved with different materials. Thus, Teatralnaya Square was paved in some places with woodblocks, and the rest with cobblestones.

Street paving work was carried out by the Partnership association for asphalt work production in two ways. Less used in Russia and other European countries was the “coule” method, when courtyards, sidewalks, floors in bathhouses, basements, stables, sheds, laundries, and other indoor premises were paved with melted asphalt. The streets were sometimes paved using the same method. The Partnership association for asphalt work production in Russia used this method more often, since it was cheaper and more suitable for the northern regions of the country. In particular, in this way the company proposed to pave the roadway along Lebyazhye Highway near the Summer Garden and further along Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt. After breaking the contract with A.E. Egestorf, it was the New Hanover Asphalt Society in Hamburg which became the partner of the company; it provided asphalt material. The total length of the roadway was 3 versts and 304 sazhens. The partnership association was to complete all the work within a year, weather permitting. The width of the asphalt pavement could be 3 sazhens; the city was to pay 40 rubles per square sazhen. The payment was to be made each time after paving 1 thousand sazhens. Upon completion of the work, the company committed itself to maintaining this section of the street for thirty years. Considering that the city authorities annually spent 36 thousand rubles on fixing and maintaining this pavement, the partnership was ready to service Lebyazhye Highway and Kamennoostrovsky Avenue for 21 thousand rubles during the same period.

The city authorities agreed to most of the proposed terms. However, it was necessary to expand the asphalt pavement to 4 sazhens and, in addition, to build a paved roadside from 1 to 2 sazhens. As for the road foundation, the partnership association proposed laying a 2-inch layer of cement concrete under the asphalt surface⁹.

Considering the methods of paving roadways with asphalt, it should be noted that the most common method was the “compromise” one, when the roadways were paved with compressed rock asphalt, as it was done on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street in St. Petersburg. This method of paving was used at that time in all the main cities of Europe. However, this method was the most expensive one, as it required the use of specialized machinery. At the same time, compressed rock asphalt was ordered by the partnership association from abroad - from the best mines of San Valentino in Italy. It was brought as needed in such a way that the supply did not exceed the amount of 3 thousand rubles. By the beginning of the 1890s, the Partnership association for asphalt work production in Russia stopped leasing Bakhilovsky mines, preferring to purchase domestic asphalt from the Syzran-Pechersk Asphalt and Mining Industry Society. The annual productivity of the partnership association work varied from 30 to 50 thousand rubles¹⁰.   

It is noteworthy that this enterprise used only natural materials, rather than artificial ones, as some other asphalt manufacturers. The partnership association employed up to 15 workers, apart from foremen. During the periods of a sharp increase in orders, the company also hired temporary workers. The administrative staff of the partnership association consisted of three board members (although initially it was supposed to consist of six people), who were elected for three years by the general meeting of the shareholders. In particular, in 1894 it included St. Petersburg merchant Vasily Vasilyevich Fokht, Alexander Nikolaevich Popov, and Vasily Vasilyevich Fokht Jr. The latter two acted as directors. The company's property included: fifteen boilers for making asphalt (200 rubles each), machines for heating compressed rock asphalt worth 1,065 rubles, a shaft with weights for leveling asphalt (415 rubles), a large shaft for leveling asphalt (300 rubles), crowbars, shovels, buckets, vats, and other small tools¹¹.

Due to the lack of real estate and poor technical equipment of the company, a number of credit institutions refused to give loans to it. According to A.V. Konshin, the assistant director of the St. Petersburg office of the State Bank, the activities of the partnership association could not bring more or less significant benefit, since the raw material to which the partnership association paid special attention, namely compressed rock asphalt, has been ordered from abroad¹².

In addition, by December 31, 1893, the company, which had a fixed capital of 250 thousand rubles, also had debts in the amount of 126,513 rubles, and while according to the accounts receivable it could get a further 60,300 rubles. Thus the liability of the partnership was 51,231 rubles¹³.

Although the portfolio of the “Partnership association for asphalt work production in Russia” contained a number of profitable contracts, it became increasingly difficult to get them. In the late 1880s - early 1890s in St. Petersburg, the competition in this area became more intense. Thus, in 1892–1893, the partnership association entered into a fierce struggle for the right to build a pavement on Konyushennaya Square, where it was originally planned to make block pavement using the so-called “Pavement parquet” system. This method was considered more reliable among wooden pavements and less expensive for the city budget.

However, despite the seeming cheapness of block pavements, the city still spent considerable money on their maintenance. It was necessary very often to fix them or make new pavements. Although techniques for using harder woods improved over time, the cost of maintaining such pavements was still significant. Thus, in January 1892, the Economic Department of the Ministry of the Imperial Court decided to re-pave the pavement opposite the Court and Stables buildings on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street. The length of the pavement section in that place was 100 sazhens, and the width was 6.43 sazhens, therefore, the area of the roadway was equal to 643 square sazhens. Previously it was double cobblestone pavement. The lower one consisted of large rocks, the upper one – of medium-sized rocks. The distance between these layers was 4-5 vershoks. The pavement was convex, with a moderate slope with a blind area along the sidewalk 1.33 sazhens wide. Only one sewer pipe was used, which ran along the longitudinal axis of the street. On the trough along the sidewalk, there were drainage wells connected to the main pipe by side pipes.

When choosing wooden paving, the Economic Department relied on the city's rich experience in the use of wood. The operation of such pavements showed that they were subject to damage not only from wear and tear of the material, but to a greater extent from the uneven sedimentation of the base on which wooden blocks or bars were laid. Therefore, a preliminary decision was taken to make a fairly strong foundation, not subject to sedimentation, using homogeneous wooden blocks and having the same degree of wear. Meanwhile, the degree of wear also depended on the traffic intensity. Thus, a properly constructed block pavement, when 10‒20 thousand carriages passed on it per year, withstood 6‒7 years of operation. On average, up to 10 thousand carriages passed through Konyushennaya Square per year, but using regularly shaped paving blocks and mountain birch 3‒4 inches wide, 7‒10 inches long and 4‒6 inches high, this period could be extended to 10 years. Before the use, the paving blocks were placed in a sealed metal cylinder from which the air was pumped out. Then they were treated with “volatile hydrocarbon steam, naphthalene and creosote” produced by the distillation of coal and wood tar or petroleum residues¹⁴. After that, the paving blocks were immersed in a liquid of heavy tar or petroleum oils containing 10‒15% tar. It was planned to spend 10,670 rubles 12 kopecks on the construction of a wooden pavement opposite the Court and Stables buildings.

While there was a discussion on the method of paving and estimated costs, various companies began to contact the city government with their proposals for paving Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street and the square. In particular, John Lowt, a British citizen, representative of the Nevshtal joint-stock company proposed asphalting the square. He had already chosen a place on it behind the chapel for storing materials and demanded permission to begin work. However, the head of the Court and Stables buildings opposed this. Moreover, at the same time, the Partnership association for asphalt work production in Russia also entered the competition for this order. On August 22, 1892, the board of the enterprise addressed a letter to N.S. Petrov, the Secretary of State and manager of the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty:

Your Excellency! The board of the partnership association expects that the Court and Stables Department will not leave without its support the Russian partnership association, with whose care in St. Petersburg there are now appearing pavements which fully meet all modern requirements and especially sanitary conditions; it has prepared a supply of expensive material and for Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street ordered from abroad a specialist who can make compressed rock asphalt pavements¹⁵.  

Since the Court and Stables Department had not yet decided on a contractor, the partnership association as a domestic enterprise asked to be given the opportunity to fulfill this order.

It is noteworthy that in the struggle for the right to carry out the work on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street the Nevshtal joint-stock company authorized another of its representatives in Russia, German citizen August Janke. He began to convince the Court Department with persistence that his company would be the best at performing the work. However, the Partnership association for asphalt work production did not ease pressure on this department:

Consolidated by the Imperial Court, joint stock partnership association for asphalt work production in Russia has been striving for more than 20 years for the development of asphalt production in Russia as, undoubtedly, useful in many respects, and after many years of struggle with foreign competitors and significant costs, managed to achieve this goal if not better, then in any case no worse than foreign companies engaged in the same business¹⁶.   

From the correspondence of the Court office with two competing enterprises, it is clear that Baron V. B. Fredericks, the manager of the Court office still gave preference to a foreign company. Nevertheless, the persistence of the partnership association allowed it to get part of the asphalt work on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street, namely its right side, while A. Janke was allowed to pave the left side and the area in front of the Court and Stables buildings with this material. It is also noteworthy that the former applicant for the contract on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street D. Lowt gained the right to make a pavement in front of the Court Chapel.

Syzran-Pechersk society of asphalt and mining industry

Not only foreign companies competed with the Partnership association for asphalt work production. Domestic firms were no less active. In particular, among such competitors was the Syzran-Pechersk society of asphalt and mining industry. The Syzran uyezd of the Simbirsk province turned out to be the main center of asphalt production in the Russian Empire. Deposits of asphalt and asphaltite on the Samara bend along its southern fringe had been known for a long time, from the XVIII century. There once was a small factory for the production of sealing wax from asphalt there. Although deposits of this material were also found in other parts of the state, the asphalt industry developed only in this area, since no other industrial deposits of asphalt stone of the required quality were found in the Russian Empire. However, there were other factories in the country for the production of this material in: St. Petersburg, Warsaw and Kiev, and in Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, and Kazan provinces. In the Simbirsk province there were the largest enterprises, which produced more than 800 thousand poods per year worth about 185 thousand rubles. The asphalt plants belonged to the Syzran-Penza Asphalt and Mining Association, the company of Lev Aleksandrovich Toporkov, the Syzran Asphalt Concrete Partnership Association and other companies. Thus, the former among the listed enterprises produced asphalt for sale in the form of lozenge weighing from 2 to 2 ½ poods, with the stamps “Asphalt of Syzran-Pechersk society of asphalt and mining industry.” Not only asphalt mastic made from real tar which came onto the market, but also various types of surrogates from it, namely: a) coal asphalt made from coal tar, sand and other products) and b) asphalt mastic made from oil tar and a number of other materials. The asphalt plant in Warsaw and a small one in Kiev produced only artificial asphalt, which could not then compete with natural asphalt due to various technical properties and high cost. The asphalt factories of that time also produced material for paving streets, sidewalks, floors in residential premises, for insulating against dampness and many other purposes. For the production of asphalt mastic, they used mainly calcareous rocks impregnated with bitumen, which was also called mountain tar. These rocks were ground to fine powder, and a certain amount of pure tar was added to it; everything was processed in special boilers at high temperature. The result was asphalt mastic, which was used for various production needs.

The main founders of the Syzran-Pechersk society of asphalt and mining industry were Andrei Andreevich Iordan, a Prussian native, Syzran temporary second-guild merchant and Nikolai Yakovlevich Rostovtsev, Major General, Count, who began to develop asphalt deposits in the Syzran uyezd in 1874. On June 15, 1875, they entered into a contract with the Syzran apanage office to lease a plot of land for extracting asphalt for a 25-year period. Under this contract they were allowed to set up a factory on this land. However, the partners decided to build their small factory by agreement with the peasants of the village of Bakhilovo on their land. This enterprise was located 15 versts from the Batraki station of the Syzran-Vyazma railway. On January 16, 1882, on the initiative of Iordan and Count Rostovtsev, as well as with the support of hereditary honorary citizen Moritz Nikolaevich Falk and bachelor of laws David Lazarevich Kreutzer, a petition was submitted to establish a joint-stock company. In St. Petersburg, all constituent matters were handled by D.L. Kreutzer. From the petition it followed that from 1874 the enterprise had annually produced up to 140 thousand poods of asphalt worth up to 50 thousand rubles. At the plant there were a mechanic and 75 workers. The cost of the plant reached 100 thousand rubles¹⁷.

According to the Statute, all property of A.A. Iordan and Count N.Ya. Rostovtsev, which consisted of the plant and all residential and non-residential buildings, machines, apparatuses, stocks of goods and materials located near it, as well as the leased land was transferred to the newly founded joint-stock company. The fixed capital of this enterprise was 300 thousand rubles divided into 600 registered shares of 500 rubles each. All the shares were distributed between the founders and persons invited by them to participate in this enterprise, but only by mutual agreement. The money for the purchased shares was to be paid within six months without any installments. It did not take the founders of the new enterprise much time to approve their statute, which was signed by the emperor on July 30, 1882 in Krasnoe Selo¹⁸. The board of the company was in St. Petersburg and consisted of three directors and two candidates elected by the general meeting of the shareholders. The former were elected for three years, and the latter for two years from individuals who owned at least twenty shares. The managing director was to own at least thirty such shares. The first director of the company was D.L. Kreutzer, the candidates were A.A. Iordan and P.E. Voinov.

In the field of asphalt work, this enterprise turned out to be one of the most successful in Russia. Even after the fire in May 1895 and the complete destruction of the plant near the village of Bakhilovo, the company was able to quickly recover, and by February 1896, they had built a new, more modern plant on the bank of the Volga ten miles from Pecherskoye station. The reconstructed plant specialized in the production of tar. They got orders from a variety of other Russian cities; the company carried out work in: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Kharkov, Baku, Nizhny Novgorod, and other cities.

During the early XX century, this company became the largest enterprise in the industry. On the eve of the First World War, its shareholders were: Vasily Fedorovich Karneev (he had 103 shares), Genrikh Davidovich Kreuzern (100 shares), Dmitry Nikolaevich Batyushkov (100 shares), Pavel Alekseevich Sazonov (100 shares), Count Yakov Nikolaevich Rostovtsev (100 shares), Alexander Dmitrievich Protopopov (100 shares), Rutgers (30 shares), Nikolai Vasilyevich Meshkov (226 shares) and Vladimir Davidovich Kreuzern (21 shares)¹⁹. It is noteworthy that the production of various materials by this company significantly exceeded the actual work on asphalting pavements. Thus, in 1913, the enterprise produced: asphalt mastic worth 208,662 rubles 56 kopecks, asphalt powder worth 79 rubles 95 kopecks, tar worth 98,898 rubles 69 kopecks, asphalt limestone worth 29,879 rubles 23 kopecks, tar sandstone worth 8,548 rubles 15 kopecks, and tar paper varnish worth 102 rubles 95 kopecks; the asphalt work which was carried out was worth only 4,854 rubles 39 kopecks²⁰.

In 1914, the company expanded its production through the acquisition of assets of the Syzran asphalt plant by the Partnership association. According to the deed of purchase, on March 21, 1914, the company bought a country house in the village of Batraki, Syzran uyezd, the Simbirsk province with an area of 1 desyatin and 2000 square sazhens of tillable land and 1 desyatin 1600 square sazhens of unsuitable land. On August 5, 1914, the company also leased 562 desyatins of land with bitumen deposits from the apanage office (for a period until 1951) in the village of Pecherskoe, and in the Syzran uyezd along the Volga to the village of Old Kostychi²¹. Plots of land were also purchased in other places in the Syzran uyezd. On January 27, 1915, the apanage office allowed the company to search and explore tar sandstone in Syzran uyezd for four years, so that when these minerals were discovered, the office entered into a contract with the company for their further development. Thus, the company actively tried to expand its production of mining minerals and carrying out road work. However, the events of the First World War would affect the situation negatively.

Conclusion

By the beginning of the XX century, all conditions had been created for the further development of the asphalt industry in Russia. At the beginning of the new century St. Petersburg and other cities would switch to continuous asphalting of intracity roads in the countryside. However, due to Russia's entry into the war in 1914, the budgetary priorities of authorities changed significantly, which led to the reduction in spending on the social sphere and, in particular, of urban redevelopment and infrastructure. These circumstances deeply affected the development of the asphalt industry in the country, which was only able to recover and develop dynamically only in the 1930s, when the city authorities of Leningrad began to actively replace block pavements with asphalt.

_{¹ V.V. Morozan, “History of St. Petersburg’s Pavements,” RUDN Journal of Russian History 22, no. 3 (2023): 342–353, https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-8674-2023-22-3-342-353}

_{² I.A. Ageev, “Methodological resource of historical urban studies in modern research of urban spaces,” Tomsk State University Journal, no. 385 (2014): 79–84, https://doi.org/10.17223/15617793/385/13; S.А. Bakanov, “Urban history in Russia declares itself.” Magistra Vitae: ehlektronnyi zhurnal po istoricheskim naukam i arkheologii, no. 2 (2016): 198–201; I.N. Stas', “Urban History: between History and Social Sciences,” Sotsiologicheskoe obozrenie, no. 3 (2022): 250–285, https://doi.org/10.17323/1728-192x-2022-3-250-285; E.E. Tinikova, “Approaches to the study of the domestic model of urbanization in modern historical science,” Tomsk State University Journal of History, no. 76 (2022): 120–127, https://doi.org/10.17223/19988613/76/14; G.W. Davies, “The Rise of Urban History in Britain c. 1960–1978,” Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester. Leicester, 2014; M. Frisch, “Comment on Michael B. Katz, ‘From Urban as Site to Urban as Place: Reflections on (Almost) a Half Century of U. S. Urban History’,” Journal of Urban History 41, no. 4 (2015): 595–599; T. Weaver, Urban Crisis: The Genealogy of a Concept,” Urban Studies 54, no. 9 (2017): 2039–2055, etc.}

_{³ Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv Sankt-Peterburga [Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg] (thereafter – TsGIA St. Peterburg), f. 513, op. 118, d. 391, l. 9.}

_{⁴ RGIA, f. 1287, op. 7, d. 397, l. 1.} 

_{⁵ TsGIA St. Peterburg, f. 787, op. 5, d. 239, l. 5–6.}

_{⁶ TsGIA St. Peterburg, f. 513, op. 118, d. 391, l. 1.}

_{⁷ RGIA, f. 588, op. 2, d. 620, l. 1.}

_{⁸ Gorod Sankt-Peterburg s tochki zreniia meditsinskoi politsii [The city of St. Petersburg from the point of view of the medical police] (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M.D. Lomkovskago Publ., 1897), 289.}

_{⁹ TsGIA St. Peterburg, f. 513, op. 118, d. 411, l. 1–2.}

_{¹⁰ RGIA, f. 588, op. 2, d. 620, l. 2.}

_{¹¹ Ibid.}

_{¹² Ibid., l. 4.}

_{¹³ Ibid.}

_{¹⁴ TsGIA St. Peterburg, f. 468, op. 15, d. 460, l. 12 оb.}

_{¹⁵ Ibid., l. 21.}

_{¹⁶ TsGIA St. Peterburg, f. 468, op. 15, d. 460, l. 25.}

_{¹⁷ RGIA, f. 22, op. 4, d. 384, l. 34–36.}

_{¹⁸ Ibid., l. 53.}

_{¹⁹ Ibid., f. 23, op. 13, d. 491, l. 10.}

_{²⁰ RGIA, f. 23, op. 13, d. 491, l. 46–53.}

_{²¹ Ibid., l. 12.}

About the authors

Vladimir V. Morozan

Author for correspondence.
Email: v_moga@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4312-0566
SPIN-code: 9704-6714

Dr. Habil. Hist., Professor of the History Department of the Peoples of the CIS Countries, Institute of History

References