Description of the attraction
In St. Petersburg, not far from the building of the Smolny Institute on Odessa Street, which is located between Tverskaya Street and Suvorovsky Prospekt, in 1998 a monument to the St. Petersburg lamplighter was unveiled. The authorship of this sculpture belongs to B. Sergeev and O. Pankratova. The sculpture is made of cast iron.
The place chosen for this monument is noteworthy. The fact is that in the 70s of the 19th century, the workshop of the engineer Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin was located on Odessa Street. It was this man who was the inventor of the induction furnace, autonomous diving apparatus and incandescent lamps, with the beginning of the widespread use of which lamplighters were left without work.
The first lanterns on St. Petersburg streets appeared in 1706 during the reign of Peter I. They were lit on the day of celebrations dedicated to the victory in the war with the Swedes. This innovation was liked by the tsar, and his entourage, and the inhabitants of Northern Palmyra. From that day on, lanterns were lit on all holidays.
In 1718, 4 permanent lanterns were installed in front of the Winter Palace by order of the tsar. A little later, benches were placed under each lamppost, on which those who walked in the evening could rest. Special workers were assigned to watch the lanterns. After the death of Tsar Peter, this innovation was forgotten, although later Empress Anna Ioannovna issued a decree on lighting the streets of the city. Only during the reign of Empress Catherine II on the streets of St. Petersburg lanterns lit up again and lamplighters were recruited to the service.
The lamplighter's duties were quite simple - to fill special containers with flammable liquid, light, extinguish and, if necessary, repair street lamps. One lamplighter was in charge of 8 to 10 lamps.
By the middle of the 18th century, there were slightly less than 600 lanterns in St. Petersburg, and by 1794 there were almost 3, 5 thousand. This is to some extent due to the fact that in the society of that time it was believed that it was profitable to engage in lighting. Many merchants were hired to do this business, and the authorities rewarded those who had street lamps burning regularly and those who had a lot of them. For a long time it was customary to light lanterns in the evenings from the beginning of August to the end of April.
In 1718, the famous architect J.-B. Leblon presented to the public the first model of a street lamp, which was fueled with hemp oil. Then they began to use kerosene and alcohol as a combustible liquid. Gas lanterns were first lit in St. Petersburg on the Apothecary Island in 1819. The light from the street lamps was very dim then. Sometimes the lamplighters were late to light them on time or put them out earlier than necessary. It was said at the time that this was how they were saving butter for themselves.
Famous architects took part in the design of models of some street lamps: Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Henri de Montferrand, Yu. M. Felten. And in September 1873 A. N. Lodygin installed the first electric street lamp in Russia and abroad in front of his workshop, which was located on Odessa street in house No. 2. From that moment on, the profession of a lamplighter gradually began to be in less demand, and over time it became history altogether, since electric lights were lit automatically. An interesting fact is that, in spite of this, St. Petersburg did not become the first city fully illuminated by electric lamps. The last oil lanterns from the outskirts of Leningrad were dismantled in the 30s of the 20th century. The championship belongs to Tsarskoe Selo.
Already in our time, a museum dedicated to the illumination of St. Petersburg was opened in Lodygin's house. Not far from it is now a St. Petersburg lamplighter. Next to the lamplighter, there are lamps of those designs that have ever stood on the streets of the city, but now, unfortunately, are not working.
