Father of Soviet ferrous metallurgy who built Kuznetsk
A chemistry student, young Bardin wandered into Professor Izhevsky's lecture and resolved: 'I will be a blast-furnace operator.' Thirty years later, that resolve was Europe's largest steelworks.
A village tailor's son, Bardin studied metallurgy at Kyiv Polytechnic and learned steelmaking as a labourer in American mills. A disciple of blast-furnace master Mikhail Kurako, he rebuilt the works of Yuzovka, Yenakiyevo, Makeyevka, and Kamenskoye, then as chief engineer of the Kuznetsk Combine (1929–1937) erected Europe's largest blast furnaces in 1,000 days. Made a full Academician in 1932 without a single paper, he was vice-president of the Academy of Sciences from 1942. In wartime he concentrated Ural science on defence; afterwards he championed oxygen-converter steelmaking and continuous casting. A non-party figure the security organs never touched, he adopted eleven children of his repressed colleagues.
Career Timeline
- 1910Graduated Kyiv Polytechnic; engineer at Yuzovka Works
- 1910–1911Labourer at US machine-building and steel plants
- 1915–1923Workshop chief then chief engineer, Yenakiyevo Works
- 1924–1925Chief engineer, Makeyevka Works
- 1925–1929Chief engineer, Dzerzhinsky Works, Kamenskoye
- 1929–1937Chief engineer, Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine (KMK)
- 1937–1939Chief engineer, Ferrous Metallurgy Directorate → Chairman of Technical Council
- 1939Deputy People's Commissar of Ferrous Metallurgy
- 1939–1960Director, Institute of Metallurgy, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1942–1960Vice-President, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1944–1960Founding director, TsNIIchermet