Nature's Evil [calibre 5.27.0]

Religious minorities often worked in the metal industries. The Huguenots, fleeing persecution in France, brought their metal-making skills to England and later to Prussia; Abraham Darby, who was the first to turn coal into coke and smelt pig iron, was a Quaker. It is hardly surprising that the production of metal in Russia was in the hands of Old Believers. But northern iron was an accursed business: the history of this idyllic territory was as packed with dramatic incidents as an adventure story from the South Seas. Monasteries were built by some, only to be destroyed by others. The ‘mountain factories’ bonded thousands of peasants as their ‘factory serfs’. In 1702, Peter I assigned some factories in the Urals to Demidov. Thousands of Old Believers found refuge there. Some miners perished in 1723 in the mass self-immolation at Yelunsk, near Tomsk: over 500 people committed suicide rather than give themselves up to the troops sent by the tsar-Antichrist. In 1735 the government investigated the Old Believers working for Demidov; 2,000 of them were discovered in just one factory. Nikita Demidov was constantly accused of heresy – trials and denunciations occurred throughout his life. By giving shelter to thousands of schismatics and runaway serfs, he was breaking the law but obtaining a cheap and devoted workforce.

At this time of unending wars, bureaucratic experience was transmitted from one enemy to another. Peter’s Twelve Colleges, the first experiment in ministerial rule in Russia, were modelled on the Swedish pattern. In 1719 the Berg College, the Russian version of the Bureau of Mines, was set up with the rights of a ministry. Its first president was the Scottish immigrant James (in Russia, Jacob) Bruce, an artilleryman and alchemist. The Saxonian Johann Blüher was the leading expert. During the Northern War with Sweden, Peter I relayed urgent orders to Demidov. The Ural iron was considered the equal of Swedish iron, but Demidov’s cannons cost only half as much. During the war Demidov got the monopoly on supplying cannons, anchors and nails for the Russian Navy. He also obtained the right to export his iron. Demidov used the advanced technology of watermills to provide energy for the blacksmiths’ bellows, hammers and drills. He built dams, canals and sluice gates – the same rivers that provided transportation gave energy for production; just one of his factories, in Barnaul, had fourteen waterwheels that powered twenty different machines. 29 Demidov’s blast furnaces were much taller than the Tula furnaces in central Russia, and five times more productive. And he became fabulously rich from his munitions work. Towards the end of his life he was producing two-thirds of all iron in Russia. He died in Tula in 1725, the same year as his patron, Peter I.

Nikita Demidov had three sons; after their father’s death they were ennobled. According to Nikita’s will, his eldest son, Akinfy, inherited all the factories and estates. The youngest son, Nikita, served in the Berg College and built state factories. The middle son, Grigory, was murdered by his son Ivan, who was executed for the crime. A worthy heir, Akinfy Demidov continued to expand to the east; he opened new factories in the Altai, close to the Chinese border. Copper and rare metals were processed there, and silver was also present. Demidov’s people extracted it from the mine they dug on the Zmeiny (Serpentine) Mountain. The Saxonian Johann Samuel Christiany ran the business. There were rumours that he was minting silver for Demidov without the exchequer’s knowledge; but, unlike his compatriot Justi, he survived. Management skills and the ability to keep secrets were rare talents which both Demidovs possessed in abundance. Running dozens of factories situated in such remote places that letters from them could take years to arrive, they needed a network of people in whom they had complete confidence; the Old Believer community was fundamental to this.