Mining engineer Ivan Kotlyarevsky: Biographical essay

The article deals with the official and social activities of mining engineer Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarevsky, and with his cooperation with Gornyi Zhurnal. During his service I. P. Kotlyarevsky worked in the government-owned and private Ural mining districts (Kama–Votkinsk, Serginsky–Ufalei, Upper Iset), having worked his way up from the lowest positions to a plant manager and a district mining chief. In addition, he held the post of the head of a division of at the Mining Department. Having published his first article in Gornyi Zhurnal in 1849, I. P. Kotlyarevsky co-operated with the Journal for many years. In his first publications in the late 1840s–1850s, Kotlyarevsky described in detail a number of technologies practiced at the Votkinsk plant. In particular, he described different methods of producing cement and cast steel, stacking and anchors, and carefully analyzed experiments on introduction of gas puddling. The engineer Kotlyarevsky’s articles were not exclusively descriptive: they contained analyses of technologies and recommendations for their improvement. In the 1860s Ivan Kotlyarevsky gave a detailed description of all mining districts of the Ural, which contained the in-depth analyses of their situation, as well as the equipment of the government-owned metallurgical plants. In the late 1860s–early 1870s, on the pages of Gornyi Zhurnal, Kotlyarevsky thoroughly outlined his position on privatization of the Ural government-owned metallurgical plants. Having subjected to sharp and thoughtful criticism, he very convincingly showed the necessity of existence of the state sector in metallurgy. Kotlyarevsky’s example illustrates participation of mining engineers in the public life of the settlements where they lived on duty. I. P. Kotlyarevsky’s participation in the social activities for the welfare of inadequate students of the Yekaterinburg educational institutions—men’s gymnasium and real school—is considered.