ИСТИНА

The evolution of the technology of materials such as metals and alloys, ceramics, glass in late medioeval Russia was based on the empirical knowledge and local traditions. The foundation of the Russian Academy of Sciences by Peter the Great in 1724 has not changed dramatically the situation in the development of material science and engineering. The first state Russian glass factories such as Izmaylovsky factory (1668) and glasshouses in Jamburg and Zhabino are known by the production of luxury glassware. They used local raw materials intergrated with glass technology imported in Russia from Europe by invited masters, cutters, grinders from Bohemia, Saxony, Prussia. In the middle of 1730s British merchant William Elmsel set up a glass factory on the River Fontanka in Saint-Petersburg. This glasshouse (transformed in 1774 in Nazia near Schlisselburg) also produced potassium-calcium silicate glass according to centralEuropean receipt. The local medioeval Russian tradition of glass production was based on the sodium-potassium-lead glasses containing up to 70% of PbO. This receipt has not been used in Central Europe also it was mentioned by Theophilus in Schedula diversarum artium as plumbum vitrum iudaicum sciliset. The first meeting of science and technology in Russia takes place in 1750s. Namely, in the end of 1752 the Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov got a loan from Senate for the building of the glass factory for “the affair necessary and useful for the State”. The next year the manor of Ust-Ruditsa together with four villages was granted by the Empress Elizabeth “for making the invented coloured glasses and beads and all sorts of bijouterie”. Glass production started in 1754 continoued up to 1768. The excavations at Ust-Ruditsa initiated in 1949 have unearthed more than 6000 glass fragments, partly conservated in the Kunstkamera Museum. They are the coloured sodium-potassium-lead glasses opacified by born ash. Using a strictly limited number of colorants and varying both its combination and a composition of glass matrix Lomonosov elaborated a reach palette of tesserae comprising more than a hundred of basic tints and over one thousand hues. Using the reduction atmosphere in glass furnace Lomonosov succeded in production of red color “sealing wax” glass pastes. He was the first in Russia to produce gold ruby glass, but on contary to the central European compositions lead glass matrix was used. The records in his partially preserved laboratory journal also contain receipts for lead coloured glass pastes. The studies of Lomonosov glasses and glass pastes by a number of modern analytical techniques (ICP MS, laser ablation, SEM, UV-vis absorption spectroscopy) showed their composition, microstructure and explained the origin of color. The basic glass composition used by Lomonosov is typical for the medioeval Russian glasses and differes from Central European receipts. Being not only scientist, but a technician and engineer, he elaborated the procedure for obtaining colored glass pastes not only in laboratory but in the factory as well. Such diversity of glass colors is unique for this period and characterizes both the labour skills of Lomonosov and national Russian tradition of glass-making.