To the question Who invented asphalt? ? When did he appear in Russia? given by the author Neurosis the best answer is did he show up there?

Answer from electrostatics[guru]
Why do we need asphalt .... let there be a place on the planet free from bituminous tapes compressing the earth ....

Answer from Fitted[guru]
In the summer of 1839, sidewalks were covered in St. Petersburg for 45.5 linear fathoms 5 feet wide (97.08 × 1.52 m) and part of the bridge 8.5 long and 6.5 feet wide (2.59 × 1 .98 m) at the Tuchkov bridge dam. The first in Russia to establish the production of asphalt was engineer I.F. Buttats. The cost of 1 sq. m of coverage cost 14 rubles. For the first time, Russian asphalt began to be mined at the Syzran plant in 1873 (on the right bank of the Volga, 20 km higher than Syzran).
In 1876, the Moscow City Duma allocated 50 thousand rubles for an experiment on the installation of asphalt concrete pavement. Several sections of new material were built on Tverskaya Street

Answer from Liana Ceri[guru]
Asphalt (from the Greek asphaltos - mountain resin) is a mixture of bitumen (60–75% in natural and 13–60% in artificial asphalt) with minerals (limestone, sandstone, etc.). It is used in a mixture with sand, gravel, crushed stone for the construction of highways, as a roofing, hydro- and electrical insulating material, for the preparation of putties, adhesives, varnishes, etc. Asphalt can be of natural and artificial origin
a luchwe zaidi po ssilke,tam mnogo napisano ob istorii asfalta.udachi!
link

Answer from Kitten[newbie]
no one is just an accident

Answer from Hanna[guru]
Asphalt (from Greek άσφαλτος - mountain resin) - a mixture of bitumen (60–75% in natural and 13–60% in artificial) with minerals (limestone, sandstone, etc.). It is used in mixture with sand, gravel, crushed stone for the construction of highways, as a roofing, hydro- and electrical insulating material, for the preparation of putties, adhesives, varnishes, etc. Asphalt can be of natural and artificial origin.
Natural asphalt is formed from heavy fractions of oil or their residues as a result of evaporation of its light components and oxidation under the influence of hypergenesis. It occurs in the form of reservoir vein deposits, as well as impregnated permeable layers (so-called acidification) and lakes in areas of natural oil seeps to the earth's surface (content in rocks from 2–3 to 20%). Solid black fusible mass with a shiny or dull conchoidal fracture. Density 1.1 g/cm3, melting point 20–100°C. Contains 25–40% oils and 60–75% resinous asphaltene substances. Elemental composition (%): 80–85 C, 10–12 N, 0.1–108, 2–3 O. Asphalt deposits are available on the territory former USSR, in Venezuela, Canada, France, on about. Trinidad and others. Mixing with mineral components (sand, gravel, etc.), it turns into a more or less powerful crust on the surface of large "oil lakes". Such asphalt is widespread in areas of shallow occurrence or outcrop of oil-bearing rocks and usually fills cracks and caverns in limestones, dolomites and other rocks. History - Natural asphalt is abundantly found in ruins excavated in the vicinity of Babylon, where it was used instead of lime or cement in masonry. stone walls. Natural asphalt, or pitch, was also used by the ancients for pitching ships. Natural asphalt, also, according to the Bible, was pitched on the basket in which the mother put Moses, placing the basket in the reeds on the banks of the Nile River. Artificial asphalt or asphalt concrete is construction material in the form of a compacted mixture of crushed stone, sand, mineral powder and bitumen. Distinguish between hot, containing viscous bitumen, laid and compacted at a temperature not lower than 120 ° C; warm - with low-viscosity bitumen and compaction temperature of 40–80°C; cold - with liquid bitumen, compacted at ambient temperature, but not lower than 10°C. Asphalt concrete is used to cover roads, airfields, sites, etc. Initially, in the 19th century, city streets were paved with stones (cobblestone pavement). Starting from the middle of the 19th century, in France, Switzerland, the United States and a number of other countries, road surfaces are being made from bitumen-mineral mixtures. In 1876, for the first time in the United States, cast asphalt was used, prepared using petroleum bitumen. For the first time, asphalt concrete pavement was used to cover the sidewalks of the Royal Bridge in Paris in the 30s of the XX century. In the early 1930s, in France, in the department of Ain, sidewalks on the Moran bridge over the Rhone River in Lyon were covered with asphalt. The booming road network required new types of pavements that could be constructed as quickly as subgrades. So, in 1892 in the USA, the first road structure made of concrete 3 m wide was built by the industrial method, and 12 years later, with the help of an asphalt distributor with a free flow of hot bitumen, 29 km of the road. Asphalt was the most suitable material for pavement. Firstly, it becomes more even, and therefore less noisy and has the necessary roughness. Secondly, you can immediately open traffic on the laid asphalt concrete and not wait until it hardens, unlike cement concrete, which gains the necessary strength only on the 28th day. Thirdly, asphalt concrete pavement is easily repaired, washed, cleaned, any markings adhere well to it.

In which city did the first paved road appear?

Asphalt was the first oil product that man met. Natural asphalt - one of the types of natural bitumen - is a viscous resinous substance formed from heavy oil fractions as a result of prolonged weathering. It occurs in the form of reservoir vein deposits, as well as lakes in places where oil naturally comes out to the surface of the earth. It is a hard, fusible black mass containing 25–40% oils and 60–75% resinous asphaltene substances. The word "asphalt" (from the Greek "asfales" - strong, strong, reliable) has been known since the time of Herodotus, who described Mesopotamian and Persian asphalt deposits in his "History".
People found the use of natural asphalt at the dawn of civilization - in Ancient Egypt 5,000 years ago, the floors and walls of barns for grain storage were covered with asphalt. In Babylon it was used as binder when laying stone walls - the Bible says that when building Tower of Babel"earthen tar" was used, as asphalt was called in ancient times. The same Babylonians, when constructing the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, used a layer of asphalt mixed with reeds for waterproofing. For 400-500 years BC in Media, the walls of fortresses, as the ancient Greek historian Xenophon testifies, were built of bricks held together with natural bitumen. In the same way, on bitumen, the first sections of the Great Wall of China were erected.
As for the road use of asphalt, which is more familiar to us, natural asphalt was used in the construction of roads in America, more than half a thousand years before such use of asphalt was thought of in Europe and the USA. When in 1532 a detachment of Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro entered the territory of the Inca Empire, they were amazed, among other things, by the magnificent roads covered with asphalt.
But the great civilizations of the past perished, and asphalt as a building material was forgotten for centuries and millennia. Until the beginning of the 19th century, the streets of all cities in the world in best case paved with stones, and only then in major cities started new era the era of asphalt. In 1832 - 1835. in Paris, the first work was done on paving city streets and sidewalks with asphalt. Further, in 1835-1840, it was the turn of London, Vienna, Lyon, Philadelphia and some other cities.
V Russian Empire The first experience of using asphalt was made in 1839, when in St. Petersburg almost 100 meters of a one and a half meter wide pavement near the Tuchkov Bridge were covered with it. On a somewhat larger scale, asphalt was used in 1865, when the terraces of the Winter Palace were asphalted. But already next year, asphalt began to be widely used on ordinary St. Petersburg streets, squares and courtyards, and by 1880 many streets in Kronstadt, Moscow, Riga, Kharkov, Kiev and Odessa were covered with it. True, the first asphalt plant was built in Russia only in 1873, a few miles from Syzran, and before that, asphalt was purchased abroad.
Since the middle of the 19th century, in France, the USA, Switzerland and other countries, road surfaces have been made from bitumen-mineral mixtures. In the United States, cast asphalt prepared using petroleum bitumen was first used in 1876. Then, in 1892, the first road structure 3 meters wide was built using the industrial method, and 12 years later, 29 km of the road was built using a free-flowing asphalt distributor with hot bitumen.
The booming road network needed new types of pavement, and asphalt proved to be the most suitable material. It can be laid almost perfectly evenly, it is a very quiet coating, but at the same time it has the necessary roughness. Modern roads are covered with asphalt, made on the basis of petroleum bitumen, obtained as a result of air oxidation of heavy residues of oil distillation at a temperature of 239-340 °C. This process was developed in 1896 and put into production in 1914.

Asphalt is a natural or artificial multicomponent material based on surface (formed when it comes to the surface of the earth) or oil (obtained as a result of oil refining and subsequent processing of the tar remaining in the sediment) bitumen containing mineral fillers - gravel, crushed stone different breeds, sand.

In fact, the application of the term "asphalt" to road asphalt mixtures is incorrect. The content of asphalt as a mixture of bitumen in the total mass is several times less and depends on the grade of the material.

The beginning of the use of asphalt for road construction

The first mention of the use of natural asphalt for road construction refers toXVIcentury and South America. The production of artificial poured asphalt mixes appeared in the USA only at the end ofXIXcentury, bitumen-mineral compositions came to the streets of Europe a little earlier - in 1830-40. paved sidewalks and roadways in the cities of France, Austria, Great Britain and Russia began to be replaced with asphalt pavements.

The first trial and larger-scale experience of asphalting was carried out in St. Petersburg, but only by 1980. the new road material spread to other major cities. At the same time, its own plant was not built in Russia immediately - for three decades, the then progressive product was purchased abroad.

America again proved to be a pioneer in mechanized laying. It was here that an asphalt distributor was first used to build a road, from which hot bitumen.

The composition of natural and artificial asphalt

Natural asphalt is mined from rare deposits - Lake Peach Lake in Trinidad, the Dead Sea in Israel, Alberta in Canada, the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela, the US states, Iran, Cuba. The composition includes a mixture of bitumen with a content of up to 70%, inorganic inclusions and organic compounds.

Artificial asphalt mixes consist of two main components. Viscous, low-viscosity or liquid petroleum, modified bitumen and PBB (polymer-bitumen binders) act as a binder component. Crushed stone / gravel of different fractions from 5-10 mm to 20-40 mm, sand and mineral powder are used as fillers to improve strength, viscosity and fill voids.

Asphalt concrete is a monolithic road surface obtained by laying and compacting an asphalt concrete mixture.

Asphalt production technology

The main steps in the production of any asphalt mix are the preparation of components, mixing and storage in a bunker. Production is carried out at stationary and mobile (located near the road construction site) plants.

General technological steps:

• Preparation of the mixture components. Mineral fillers are crushed and separated into fractions using a screen, dried, heated, dosed and fed into the mixer.
• bitumen preparation. The heated bitumen is fed to the bitumen melting plant, kept under constant stirring, adding surfactants and raising the temperature until the moisture evaporates, is sent to the working boilers and to the batching of the mixer.
• Mixing components. Prepared crushed stone / gravel, sand are fed into a forced-action asphalt mixer for “dry” mixing with the addition of mineral powder and the subsequent addition of heated bitumen and mixing until a homogeneous mixture.
• Overload ready mix. Hot mix asphalt is sent to a storage bin or loaded into dump trucks for transportation to construction site. The cold mixture is cooled and transported to a warehouse for storage.

Heating of crushed stone and bitumen in the production of hot mixes is carried out to a temperature of 165 ... 175 0 С and 140…155 0 C, in the manufacture of cold mixes - up to 65 ... 75 0 С and 110…120 0 C respectively.

The classification of asphalt mixes is carried out according to residual porosity, type of mineral materials, their fraction and percentage, bituminous binder and laying temperature.

Separate types of asphalt concrete mixtures

In addition to traditional and widely used asphalt concrete mixtures, there are more progressive road materials that differ from the first in composition and laying conditions.

These include:

• Crushed stone-mastic mixtures of ShchMA with stabilizing additives.
• Cast asphalt mixtures with increased content of bitumen and mineral powder.
• Polymer-asphalt-concrete mixtures with the addition of polymers (elastomers).
• Colored hot and cold mixtures with coloring pigments.
• Glass-asphalt-concrete mixtures with the inclusion of glass cullet.
• Rubber-asphalt-concrete and rubber drainage mixtures with crumb rubber and polymer additives.
• Sulfur asphalt concrete mixtures with the presence of technical sulfur.

Each type of material has a specific area of ​​application, due to the characteristics and performance and properties of the resulting coating.

Asphalt is a mixture of mineral materials (gravel and sand) and bitumen. In the bowels of the Earth, it can be both in liquid and solid form. When the temperature rises, it softens and becomes liquid, and when it decreases, it freezes again. Asphalt contains carbon and hydrogen, the latter, in turn, is part of crude oil.

Types of asphalt

There are two types: natural, which lies in deposits almost at the very surface of the earth, and artificial - it is produced in modern factories from crude oil. Natural asphalt has a high content of bitumen - from 60% to 75%, and in oil it is only 13-60%.

A very interesting fact is that the largest “lake of asphalt” is located on the island of Trinidad, it covers an area of ​​​​forty hectares and goes deeper than thirty meters. When paved with asphalt on the streets of Washington - the capital of the United States - most of it was taken from Trinidad.

Asphalt Lake Peach Lake, Trinidad

Asphalt is used to cover highways, for roofing, for the manufacture of various varnishes, adhesives and putties, also used as an electrical and waterproofing material.

Heyday background

In the nineteenth century, initially the streets of cities were paved with stones. In countries such as the USA, Switzerland, and France, from the middle of the nineteenth century, bitumen-mineral mixtures began to be used for paving. The first cast asphalt based on petroleum bitumen appeared in the USA in 1876. The "pioneer" of asphalt concrete pavement was in Paris in the 30s during the laying and ennoblement of the Royal Bridge, and a little later for the bridge called Moran, thrown over the Rhone River in Lyon.

Road communications developed very rapidly and required new technologies and types that were built as quickly and easily as canvases from the ground.

For the first time, the roadbed was created by the industrial method in the USA in 1892, it was 3 meters wide and made of concrete. And twelve years later, road structures were already being produced using an asphalt distributor, through which hot bitumen flowed freely.

The pioneer of mass production of asphalt in Russia was engineer I.F. Buttaz. The first Russian plant to produce this road material was Syzran (back in 1873).

Advantages of asphalt in the modern world

As it turns out, asphalt is the perfect road surface material because it has so many benefits. Over time, it became more and more even, which reduced the noise of the wheels. Unlike cement concrete, which was used earlier, asphalt concrete quickly dried out, hardened, gained strength and “allowed” to open traffic almost immediately. Cement concrete for this required a whole twenty-eight days.

V modern world asphalt is widely used and is the most popular material for covering various areas. One of the many advantages of this bituminous substance is its ductility and ability to bend rather than break. This is very important when creating runways, as sometimes the weight of an aircraft can exceed 140 tons. This quality is also significant in the creation of highways, which are driven by huge trucks, the weight of which can be more than forty-five tons.

Asphalt is very practical, easy to repair, holds any road marking remarkably well, washes well and has the necessary rigidity to grip the wheels with the road.

Modern technologies do not stand still and continue to develop. This applies to both asphalt material and its coating methods. The ability to withstand great heat and extreme cold, without fear of temperature changes, has long been added to the list of pluses.

The logs were laid across the streets, sheathed on top with boards laid in the direction of traffic. Or the upper parts of the logs were hemmed, forming a flat surface. From the inhabitants of the city Zemsky order collected "bridge money" - a tax on the improvement of streets.

Wooden pavement of the 17th century, found during excavations in the Historical passage, 1988.

Over time, wooden pavements became dirty, overgrown with earth, and the next ones were already built on top of the soil layer. Judging by the data of archaeological excavations, such layers reached 50 centimeters.

Plan "Kremlengrad" in 1602. It's hard to imagine, but back in the 16th and 17th centuries, Red Square was still uncovered. Wooden decks they led only from the streets - Nikolskaya, Ilyinka to the Nikolsky and Spassky gates of the Kremlin, respectively.

Fragment of Sigismund's plan of 1618. The wood-paved Chertolskaya street is shown - the current Volkhonka and Prechistenka.

Moscow, 17th century. Towers of the White City. Reconstruction by the restorer Sukhov. Something like this could look like streets paved with wood.

One of the Kremlin streets under reconstruction by Appolinary Vasnetsov. Here the artist depicted a type of wooden pavement with longitudinal boards, with which the logs were sheathed on top.

A fragment of an engraving by the Dutch master Pieter Pikart, 1707. On the other side, a wooden pavement is visible leading from the Moskvoretsky Gates of Kitay-Gorod to a “living” floating bridge across the Moscow River.

First experiments with stone

The first stone pavement of Moscow appeared in the Kremlin in 1643. Master Mikhail Yermolin laid out the territory of the Patriarchal Court with a stone, for which he received good money for those times - 4 rubles.

They began to pave the streets with stone only under Peter I. They started in the 1690s, in 1700 the authorities ordered "to collect bridge money from all Moscow courtyards to the Streltsy order." In 1705, a decree was issued to collect money from all cities of the country. The peasants were obliged to quarry and bring wild stone to Moscow, and that each was no less than a goose egg.

In 1718, several decrees were issued regulating the paving of streets. The maintenance of the pavements was assigned to Moscow homeowners:
“Sprinkle sand and stone against each resident in front of his yard, pave smoothly, as will be indicated by the masters, and so that the drains are along the streets, closer to the yards, and at the ends of the streets, make drains to rivers and ponds, so that they are firmly established, so that in the spring and it didn't rain in the rain."

In the central regions, it was prescribed to pave the streets and alleys with stone: "in the Kremlin and China, everyone should build stone bridges in front of his house."

However, as early as the middle of the 18th century, most of Moscow's streets were lined with wood; many of these pavements survived until the fire of 1812.

Cobblestone pavement in Krivokolenny Lane by Carl Baudry, 1843

Until the introduction of municipal government in the 1860s, it was the homeowners who had to maintain and renovate the pavements. Not all owners had the money for this, so in 1823 they established capital, from which loans were provided to poor homeowners.
One can imagine how the duty of maintenance of pavements by the townsfolk affected their quality. One updated, and his neighbor postponed this business. One did it qualitatively, the other - tyap-blunder. The pavement of the streets became more and more uneven, holes and potholes became commonplace.

Another problem until the middle of the 19th century was the imperfect technology of laying stone. In most cases, the cobblestone was paved without a substrate, directly on the ground. As a result, the coating had to be changed several times a year. Only in some places they made a pillow: first they laid logs and boards, sprinkled rubble, garbage, coal and ash on top, then added a layer of earth, and only after that they laid a stone on top. But this did not always save.

Painting by artist Pyotr Vereshchagin, 1879. There is a cobblestone roadway on the roadway, and the sidewalk along the edge of the embankment is made of stone slabs most likely sandstone.

G. Vasilich writes about the quality of roads in Moscow in the mid-19th century:
“There was no cleanliness on the streets at all, the pavements were disgusting ... In winter, the snow and accumulated manure were not brought down, and by spring Moscow was all in potholes, which, when the melting began, turned into traffic jams, and there came a moment when a prudent layman sat at home, for the passage was neither on wheels nor on sledges. ... They also note the stench that hovered over Moscow, which became especially unbearable in the lower part of Tverskaya, near Okhotny Ryad, where for a long time birds and cattle were slaughtered ... ".

Money from the city budget for pavements began to be allocated in the 1860s, and the roads were finally transferred to the maintenance of the city only in 1874. But this concerned only the carriageways of the streets, the sidewalks still had to be laid and repaired by the owners of the properties.

Sandstone pavement in the Kremlin on Cathedral Square.

Sandstone pavement in the Kremlin, 1900s.

1890s. Podsosensky lane. Cobblestone driveways and sandstone sidewalks. There is no such thing as a border.

Presnenskaya Zastava, 1910s. The area is entirely paved with cobblestones.

In the 19th century, already at the end of October, Moscow was covered with snow, and carts were exchanged for sleds. Until the Soviet era, every winter there was an order not to clear snow from the moment it fell until March 22. During the winter, up to 50 cm of compacted snow accumulated on the roadway. Excess snow was shoveled onto the roadside into snowdrifts. During thaws, snow from these snowdrifts was scattered over the bare pavement. The sidewalks were cleaned, and they turned out to be much lower than the roadway. So it was possible for the sled to fall onto the pavement if it got too close to the edge of the road.

1900s Petrovka in winter.

Until the middle of the 20th century, most of Moscow's streets still retained cobblestones. In the journal "Behind the wheel" in 1928, a detailed article was published on the state of the pavements at that time:

“Indeed, by the end of May of this year, the area of ​​​​the city passages of Moscow, one way or another paved, was equal to 11½ million square meters. meters, of which cobblestone pavement - 10.998.383 sq. meters or 95.7%. If we recall the well-known truth that a meter is one ten-millionth of a quarter of the Parisian meridian, then we can easily figure out that if a strip a meter wide is paved from Moscow cobblestone, then more than a quarter can be walked along it. the globe. This is already grandiose and, it seems, this is the only advantage of the Moscow cobblestone pavement.”

"Bus traffic contributes to the appearance of abysses on the cobblestone pavement (Butyrsky Kamer-Kollezhsky Val)." (Magazine "Behind the wheel", 1928).

1971 Cobblestone pavement in Bolshoy Vatin Lane. A shot from the film "12 Chairs" by L. Gaidai.

By 2016, the only place in Moscow where the cobblestone pavement is preserved is the Krutitsy Compound.

Krutitskaya street

When did asphalt first appear in Moscow?

In the 1870s, it became clear that you couldn’t get far on one cobblestone, it seemed to be a very outdated type of pavement, especially for main streets. More and more popularity in large cities of the world was gaining an unprecedented innovation - asphalt.

The first asphalt pavement in Moscow appeared in 1873 on Nikolskaya Street. However, it was not the city that had a hand in this, it was a private initiative. The rich and progressive merchant Alexander Porohovshchikov, who built the Slavyansky Bazaar restaurant, decided to demonstrate an outlandish novelty and rolled up the street along his property in asphalt.

Asphalt on Nikolskaya street, 1910s.

The city didn't give up either. Intelligent engineers were sent to learn from experience abroad, to Europe to see the technology of laying modern pavements, and to Baku to study the extraction and production of asphalt.
In addition to a detailed report, engineer Petunnikov brought to Moscow a statement that: "Moscow should once and for all abandon the cobblestone, recognizing it as a stone unsuitable for paving." Instead, he offered asphalt and stone pavers.

The City Duma allocated 50,000 rubles in 1876 for experiments with new types of coverage. In the same year, 5 test sections of different pavements appeared on Tverskaya Street.

The first section - pressed asphalt bricks, the second - pressed asphalt hexagonal checkers, the third - cast Syzran asphalt, the fourth - pressed Sesselsky asphalt and the fifth - wooden end pavement according to the Nicholson system.
Cast Syzran asphalt proved to be the best and, unexpectedly, a wooden end pavement.

Asphalt on Tverskaya street, 1876. There was still a cobblestone pavement in Maly Gnezdnikovsky Lane.

By 1896, the area of ​​asphalt pavements in Moscow reached 5,505 square sazhens (2.5 hectares). But for the most part this small areas along private estates, laid at the expense of wealthy entrepreneurs. Moreover, some homeowners laid asphalt along their houses to drown out the noise from iron wheels and horseshoes.

1900s. Exchange Square. The carriageway of Ilyinka is paved with cobblestones, and on the left is a pedestrian crossing rolled into asphalt.

At the beginning of the 20th century, asphalt became more and more common. In 1912-1914, 57% of the area of ​​new pavements was laid with granite paving stones, 18% with asphalt and 22% with cobblestones.
By the same time, Petrovka from Theater Square to Stoleshnikov Lane had already been rolled into asphalt, like Stoleshnikov Lane itself.

Asphalt driveway and pavement. Petrovka, 1915.

Curb stone was still a rarity, the edges of the sidewalks were laid out with cobblestones. Sidewalks on the main streets were asphalted, some properties still had large slabs sandstone.

Tverskaya. 1900s. The carriageway is made of cobblestones, asphalt on this section of the street is so far only on the sidewalks.

1927 Asphalt laying at the beginning of Tverskaya.

Surprisingly, in 1928 it was still possible to drive through a tree:

“In small quantities in Moscow you can find a wooden pavement. The wooden ends of the last time are very bad and do not satisfy the presented technical requirements(large-layered, knotty, decay); therefore, the service life of the end pavement was reduced by two years compared to the pre-war period. (Magazine "Behind the wheel")

It’s hard to believe now, but in the late 1920s, asphalt could not be imagined everywhere:

“They offered to fill all of Moscow with asphalt; of course, it would be neat and elegant. But try to climb one of the seven notorious Moscow hills on this asphalt in icy conditions and you will abandon your project. Yes, and it is difficult to build asphalt clothes on a steep slope.

In less than half a century, the whole of Moscow, indeed, was poured into asphalt.

When did paving stones appear in Moscow?

Paving stones appear in the 1870s as one of the experimental pavement types, along with asphalt.

1913 The entire 1st Tverskaya Street, from Triumphalnaya Square to Tverskaya Zastava, was paved with paving stones.

1925, Tverskaya street on the section from the Boulevard ring to Sadovoe. Experimental small paving stones - "klein-flaster", a square checker based on a concrete base.

From the magazine "Behind the wheel", 1928:

“For significant movement, paving stones are very good. In Moscow, it is used in three types: 1) normal paving stones 15-16 centimeters high, arranged on a sandy base; in the tracks of the tram, lightweight paving stones are used, 12-14 cm high; 2) brückenstein or lowered paving stones laid on a layer of concrete; 3) a kleinpflaster or a mosaic with cubes 8-10 cm high (for example, on Tverskaya, in the form of circular arcs), on a concrete base with a sand layer between the concrete and the mosaic.”

1971, paving stones on Vorontsovo Pole street. A shot from the film "12 Chairs" by L. Gaidai.

To date, there are several streets in Moscow with paving stones laid in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Paving stones on the Kuznetsk bridge, preserved to this day. Photo from the 1980s.

Paving stones on Barrikadnaya Street, photograph by A. Slyusarev, 1981

Paving stones on Barrikadnaya Street, 2010s.

Paving stones of 1927 on the Kommissariat bridge near Novokuznetskaya

When did paving stones appear on Red Square?

Red Square, 1910s. Path of asphalt in the middle of the cobblestones.

1925 The pavement of Red Square is still cobblestone.

Until the 1920s, Red Square remained paved with cobblestones, and only by the opening of Lenin's stone mausoleum in 1930, the cobblestone pavement was replaced with diabase paving stones. The stone was mined on the shores of Lake Onega and cut into bars weighing 8-10 kg.

1930 Laying paving stones on Red Square.

New paving stones along the Middle Trading Rows, 1930.

In 1974, the paving stones were completely renovated and laid on concrete base. This paving stone is made from heavy-duty gabbro igneous rock.

1974, reconstruction of Red Square.

Clinker pavements

As an experiment, in the first third of the 20th century, it was decided to pave some streets and squares of Moscow with clinker bricks. This is a Dutch invention: a heavy-duty brick made of special kind clay, fired to complete baking at a temperature of 1200 degrees. pavement of clinker brick stacked with a Christmas tree.

In the 1910s, part of Theater Square was paved with clinker, but the issue was seriously raised in 1928. From the magazine "Behind the wheel":
“In particular, the commission believed that clinker could be a suitable material for paving the outskirts and, in general, streets with little traffic. It is necessary to immediately begin studying the suitability of clays near Moscow for clinker, and in the event of a positive decision, raise the question of building clinker plants near Moscow.

In 2015, during the reconstruction of Pushechnaya Street, a completely preserved clinker brick pavement was uncovered.

This pavement was threatened with complete destruction.

But fortunately, a fragment of the roadway was transferred to the sidewalk, now it is a local landmark.

So in today's Moscow, in addition to tile-"sobyaninka" and the ubiquitous asphalt, you can walk along the cobblestone pavement, paving stones and clinker. But wooden pavements are now much more difficult to find.

Publication prepared by Alexander Ivanov