Today, using such an achievement of civilization as electricity, few people ask the question about the history of its appearance in Russia. There are a number of opinions about which date should be considered the starting point in the process of electrification of our state.
Chronology of the emergence of electricity in Russia
When determining the date of the appearance of electricity in the Russian Empire, various criteria can be used. If we take into account the public resonance, then this date should be considered 1879, when the Liteiny Bridge was illuminated in St. Petersburg with electric lamps. The story of the electrification of this bridge has a somewhat curious connotation. The fact is that it was built after private companies bought a monopoly from the city authorities on lighting streets and bridges across the Neva with oil and gas lamps. As a result, it turned out to be the only place where electric lighting could be used at that historical moment.
For the sake of fairness, it is worth mentioning that a year earlier in Kiev, several electric lamps were used to illuminate one of the workshops of the railway workshops, but this event went unnoticed by the general public.
Many are of the opinion that, from a legal point of view, the era of electricity began on January 30, 1880, when an electrotechnical department was created in the Russian Technical Society. It was this newly created structure that was charged with overseeing issues related to the development and implementation of electricity in the life of the state.
May 15, 1883, when on the occasion of the accession to the throne of Alexander III, the Kremlin was illuminated, for which a special power plant was even built on the Sofiyskaya Embankment, can be attributed to the landmark dates in the history of the emergence of electricity in Russia. In the same year, the main street of St. Petersburg was electrified, and a few months later, the Winter Palace.
In July 1886, by decree of the emperor, the "Electric Lighting Society" was created, which develops a general plan for the electrification of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Since 1888, purposeful work began on the construction of the first power plants.
Interesting facts from the history of the appearance of electricity in Russia
When studying the issue of electrification of the country, one can come across a number of interesting and curious facts. So, in 1881, Tsarskoye Selo became the first European city fully illuminated with electric lamps.
In July 1892, the empire's first electric tram was launched. This happened in Kiev. In 1895, the first hydroelectric power station in Russia was built on the Bolshaya Okhta River in St. Petersburg. Already in 1897, the first power plant was put into operation on the Raushskaya embankment in Moscow, which produced three-phase alternating current, which made it possible to transmit it without losing power over sufficiently long distances.
From the beginning of the 20th century, power plants began to be built in other cities of the Russian Empire (Kursk, Yaroslavl, Chita, Vladivostok). As of 1913, the country's power plants generated a total of about 2 million MWh per year of electricity.
