Mountain Kolyvan

Place: Russia, Altai Krai, Kolyvan Client: Administration of Altai region

Project team:Anisiforov P.I., Dolnikov A. P., Dyakova T. F., Zolotov V. I.

Project history:

Kolyvan some mistakenly correlated with Berd fortress, founded by akinfy Demidov and Mountain Kolyvan.
One of the oldest settlements in the Altai region, Kolyvan village, often becomes the object of attention of archaeologists. They discovered many traces of ancient cultures, historical and archaeological sites. One of them is the village of Afanas settlement "Podziewski". Experts refer it to the era of the Eneolithic (early bronze, IV - III centuries BC). Ancient tools, copper slags and fragments of clay and stone foundries were found there.
Revyakin Victor in the book "the whale – Sumeru Asia" describes that the settlement owed its origin to the Tomsk "miners" – Stepan Kostylev and Fedor Komarov, who was looking for traces of "the old Chud mines", and in 1717 reported to the Governor of Tomsk, which opened on the North-West foothills of Altai deposits, the rich deposits of silver and copper ores.
Despite the efforts of the Tomsk Governor to leave the extraction of metals under the jurisdiction of the state, the Ural industrialist Akinfiy Demidov received permission, and in 1726 near the foot of the Altai mountains near the Loktevka river was laid the first "manual" melting furnace, its layout can be seen in the Kolyvan Museum of the history of stone carving. Then was erected at the new location the main plant of Kolyvanskiy stone-cutting factory. It was named after the village of the same name, located four kilometers from Loktevka – Kolyvanskoye, then it was named in accordance with the temple erected in the village – kolyvano-Voskresensky. In 1747 the enterprises of the Demidovs were taken away, they became the property of Russian emperors and were transferred to the personal Cabinet of the Tsar.
When the smelting industry in 1799 gradually fell into decline, in Kolyvan from 1786 developed another industry-stone cutting, and plant for the smelting of copper began to be used for the manufacture of works of art made of stone. In 1802, on the basis of the plant opened a grinding-lapidary factory.
From the 19th century to the present time Kolyvan craftsmen passed on from generation to generation skills and knowledge on machining, grinding and finishing of works of art from stone: Jasper, bellecita, porphyry, marble, rose agate and other minerals. In the shops of the plant were made fireplaces, vases, columns and other products from the drawings of famous artists and architects: Andrei Voronikhin, Giacomo Quarenghi, Karl Rossi, Charles Cameron and others.
Many museums in the world and private collections in France and Japan, America and Mongolia, Germany and China, Kazakhstan and Belarus can boast of products from the jealous Jasper. In the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, there are 84 vases, monolithic columns of marble, floor lamps and four elegant cameos. In the same place in a separate hall there is the world-famous "Queen of vases", for which a separate hall was allocated, as its diameter exceeds five meters, and weight – 16 tons. In order for it to take its place, the wall was dismantled. Vases decorated with bronze decorate the halls of the Russian Museum, in the Mineralogical Museum. A. Ye Fersman in Moscow from it lined with picturesque fireplaces.

Awards, contests, publications, links: