It was long, long ago…
The times of the reign of the great Emperor Peter I remained in the past. However in the Ryazan Region there is still a "legacy of the sovereign" - a huge blast furnace erected by a decree of Peter the Great. I am going to tell about it but all in due time.
In the 12th century the Ryazan Principality was formed. Who lived there? It was mainly inhabited by peasants who bred cattle, grew bread, hunted and went fishing. But no matter what the peasant did, he could not live without iron. It was necessary to have a scythe to mow, an axe to build a house, a sickle to gather the harvest. And what about shoeing a horse, pulling a cast iron out of the oven or locking up the barn? It’s impossible to list everything. That’s why there was a blacksmith in every village. Only without the special material the blacksmith will do nothing. Ore was needed. People started looking for it and found it near the village of Zalipyazhye. There they began to mine. And they melted iron for the whole principality. Unfortunately, after the raid of the Mongol-Tatar tribes, all the mines were abandoned.
And no one would have known about this place if it hadn't been for Peter I. It may seem difficult to understand what the tsar had to do with it? It turned out to be easy to explain.
Peter I considered the expansion and strengthening of the borders of his state to be an important matter. For the war against Turkey and Sweden, it was crucial to have a lot of weapons. For the production of weapons, iron was extremely necessary. For this purpose Peter I created the "Order of mining affairs".
As a result, people remembered about the place near Ryazan which was rich in ore. Besides, the nature has created favorable conditions for the construction of the plant. The Istya River is nearby –you can build a dam. And dense forests around are a source of coal. So in 1715 Peter the Great ordered to build a factory. At that factory people should “melt iron and sell it to everybody who liked."
They say that Peter I himself once visited the factory. He dressed like a worker, worked for several hours with a hammer in his hands and earned 18 altyn (54 kopecks). There is another legend. It says that Peter the Great left his palm print in the eastern part of the blast furnace. No one knows if it's true or not.
But everybody knows that thanks to Peter the Great the production has been widely developed. Weapons and armor, household items and wire were made from the metal. And soon the first needle manufacturer in Russia was opened in the next village. Then Peter I banned the import of foreign needles into Russia by his decree. Why did we need any foreign things if we had our own ones?
Many years have passed since then. The walls of the old blast furnace saw everything. It would tell a lot if it could speak. But it keeps silent, just gathering blacksmiths from all over the world at its walls for the annual "International Blacksmith Festival" holiday.
