Selected text
I completed the Construction Engineering College in 1931. There were two departments: civil construction and highway engineering. Later a hydraulic engineering department was organized, which I entered. All of us graduated as construction engineers, in other words we became foremen in charge of construction.
When I entered the college, it was a three-year school, admitting people with secondary education, after completing nine or seven years of secondary school. I was the only one to have come after the ninth grade, so I lost two years, but it was easy for me to study general subjects in the technical school. I did almost nothing, I knew everything pretty well. And I was not bad at special construction disciplines, either.
It is enough to say that we published the lectures of one of our professors and my abstract of lectures was used as the basis for this brochure, lectures on hydraulics. It was the most difficult subject for my comrades. The professor’s surname was on the cover, with mine below it, saying that the publication was based upon abstracts by Tseitlin, a student of the technical school. I copied and printed all the materials. The circulation was very small, only 50 or 75 copies, just for the students and for the library of the technical school. It was the first of its sort in school.
When I was a first-year student, I negotiated work in the Ryazan Regional Land Administration. I was also offered trips to the Far East and Far North, with very good grants. But I was advised against going there, due to my poor health and I went to the Ryazan region and worked there for a few years. I had to build a water pipeline from the farmyards to the water tower and from the farmyards to a pond in a manor that had once belonged to the builder of the Moscow-Ryazan railway, von Mekk. There was a peasant saying [This was not a rumor or a saying – they really said so]: ‘There was a water pipeline here, made of wood; and the master who drilled these pipes out of logs is still alive, and the pipeline worked all right, only it delivered mash to a vodka distillery rather than water.’
I became interested, found this old timer Stepan, who drilled wood pipes [metal pipes were difficult to get then]. With the agreement of the state farm I went to Moscow to see Professor Gineev, the author of a textbook on water supplies. He says, ‘Please, find out how they did it and what drills they used.’ It appeared the drills were all hand-made by the smith. When this Stepan came to me, he said, ‘Grandfather and I did it in 1908-1909. See this stone barn, measure out two sazhens [Sazhen is a Russian measure of length, equal to 7 feet, i.e., 2,13 m] from it and dig, you will find a pipe.’ We dug and we eventually found that pipe. We wanted to see how it had survived so many years. We struck it with an axe, and the axe rebounded off it as if from metal – this was how alcoholized it had become from transporting mash to the vodka factory. It didn’t decay in the least.
I wrote about it to Professor Nikolay Nikolaevich Gineev, and I was hired right away as a scientific employee at their institute. I went there several times for consultations and they came to me as well to look and to take photographs. Finally I built that water pipeline, not completely though, because I was summoned to Moscow by Professor Gineev, who appointed me as a scientific researcher and even issued a license to order foreign literature worth 10 gold rubles every year. I received some books from Germany for that money.
So I worked a few years in Ryazan as a trainee, in the second, third and fourth years of technical school, and then after graduation. Inspectors from the Moscow Land Administration came to survey my work, and finally I was employed by the design organization of a construction trust, Mosmeliostroi – a state company dealing with meliorative hydraulic engineering. I began to work in Moscow and was promoted very fast. I was soon elected a member of the Employees Board, and then its vice-president.
When I entered the college, it was a three-year school, admitting people with secondary education, after completing nine or seven years of secondary school. I was the only one to have come after the ninth grade, so I lost two years, but it was easy for me to study general subjects in the technical school. I did almost nothing, I knew everything pretty well. And I was not bad at special construction disciplines, either.
It is enough to say that we published the lectures of one of our professors and my abstract of lectures was used as the basis for this brochure, lectures on hydraulics. It was the most difficult subject for my comrades. The professor’s surname was on the cover, with mine below it, saying that the publication was based upon abstracts by Tseitlin, a student of the technical school. I copied and printed all the materials. The circulation was very small, only 50 or 75 copies, just for the students and for the library of the technical school. It was the first of its sort in school.
When I was a first-year student, I negotiated work in the Ryazan Regional Land Administration. I was also offered trips to the Far East and Far North, with very good grants. But I was advised against going there, due to my poor health and I went to the Ryazan region and worked there for a few years. I had to build a water pipeline from the farmyards to the water tower and from the farmyards to a pond in a manor that had once belonged to the builder of the Moscow-Ryazan railway, von Mekk. There was a peasant saying [This was not a rumor or a saying – they really said so]: ‘There was a water pipeline here, made of wood; and the master who drilled these pipes out of logs is still alive, and the pipeline worked all right, only it delivered mash to a vodka distillery rather than water.’
I became interested, found this old timer Stepan, who drilled wood pipes [metal pipes were difficult to get then]. With the agreement of the state farm I went to Moscow to see Professor Gineev, the author of a textbook on water supplies. He says, ‘Please, find out how they did it and what drills they used.’ It appeared the drills were all hand-made by the smith. When this Stepan came to me, he said, ‘Grandfather and I did it in 1908-1909. See this stone barn, measure out two sazhens [Sazhen is a Russian measure of length, equal to 7 feet, i.e., 2,13 m] from it and dig, you will find a pipe.’ We dug and we eventually found that pipe. We wanted to see how it had survived so many years. We struck it with an axe, and the axe rebounded off it as if from metal – this was how alcoholized it had become from transporting mash to the vodka factory. It didn’t decay in the least.
I wrote about it to Professor Nikolay Nikolaevich Gineev, and I was hired right away as a scientific employee at their institute. I went there several times for consultations and they came to me as well to look and to take photographs. Finally I built that water pipeline, not completely though, because I was summoned to Moscow by Professor Gineev, who appointed me as a scientific researcher and even issued a license to order foreign literature worth 10 gold rubles every year. I received some books from Germany for that money.
So I worked a few years in Ryazan as a trainee, in the second, third and fourth years of technical school, and then after graduation. Inspectors from the Moscow Land Administration came to survey my work, and finally I was employed by the design organization of a construction trust, Mosmeliostroi – a state company dealing with meliorative hydraulic engineering. I began to work in Moscow and was promoted very fast. I was soon elected a member of the Employees Board, and then its vice-president.
Period
Location
Russia
Interview
Naum Tseitlin