Kulibin I.P., (1735-1818), mechanic and inventor

Categories / Science. Education/Personalia
KULIBIN Ivan Petrovich (1735-1818), self-taught mechanic and inventor. In 1764-67, he created a watch with a complicated mechanism in the shape of an egg. After presenting the watch to Empress Catherine II in 1769 (the watch is now part of the State Hermitage's collection), she appointed him chief mechanic of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences' mechanical workshops (1769-87), later making him the workshops' supervisor, a position he held until 1801. Kulibin designed a number of original mechanisms. In the 1770s, he submitted a plan for a wooden single-span bridge over the Neva River, and built a one-tenth scale model in 1776 (project was not undertaken). In 1792, he joined the Free Economic Society. In 1801, he was dismissed from the Academy of Sciences and returned to his home in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1952, Kulibin's name was given to a square (former Voskresenskaya Square).

References: Раскин Н. М., Малькевич Б. А. Рукописные материалы И. П. Кулибина в архиве Академии наук СССР: Науч. описание с прил. текстов и черт. М.; Л., 1953; Пипуныров В. Н., Раскин Н. М. Иван Петрович Кулибин, 1735-1818. Л., 1986.

O. N. Ansberg. Catherine II, Empress
Kulibin Ivan Petrovich
Пипуныров В. Н., Раскин Н. М. Иван Петрович Кулибин, 1735–1818. Л., 1986
Раскин Н. М., Малькевич Б. А. Рукописные материалы И. П. Кулибина в архиве Академии наук СССР: Науч. описание с прил. текстов и чертежей. М.; Л., 1953 Russian Academy of Sciences
Free Economic Society