Peter von Bilderling
Baron Peter von Bilderling (St Peterburg May 26, 1844 – Zapolie September 25, 1900) was an engineer and an officer in the Engineering Corps of the Imperial Russian Army. He was a humanist known for his writings, notably his book on the military horse, and his reorganisation of the Ijevsk arms factory, the manufacture of Berdanka carbines, and the creation of the no 4 line carbine. He founded the Tsaritsin refinery with Robert Nobel and the Branobel oil company in Baku with Ludwig Nobel. Finally, he established an agricultural and meteorological station in Zapolie, where he invented the roséomètre, an instrument for measuring the dew point. He was the brother of Baron Alexandre von Bilderling, the general who participated in the Russo-Japanese War. Biography Peter von Bilderling was born to a noble Baltic German family from the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. His father, Alexandre Otto Hermann Grigoriévitch von Bilderling, was a lieutenant-general in the Engineering Corps. His grandfather, Georges Sigismond von Bilterlings, (1767–1829), was a Lutheran pastor in Mitau, Courland, today known as Jelgava, Latvia. He was a professor, theologian, philosopher and writer. His mother came from an untitled family of the Polish nobility, the Doliwo-Dobrowolski. Peter von Bilderling was born in Saint Petersburg on May 26, 1844, and died the 25th of September 1900 at his Zapolie property near Louga, where he is buried. He left the Corps of Pages as a major with honors in 1861, then the Michel artillery academy in the first rank. He was attached to the Uhlan regiment of the guards of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1831–1891). He was an aide de camp to General Kartzof in the Caucasus. In 1870, he was sent on a mission by the Imperial government to Great Britain and the United States to study gun manufacture. He married twice: Sofia Vladimirovna Westmann 1853–1914 Natalia Alexandrovna Barantzov 1885–1981. Her descendants now live on the Côte d'Azur in Cannes and Nice. Ijevsk weapons factory With an imperial government lease, he and Baron Standertskjöld, directed and reorganised the Ijevsk weapons factory from 1871 to 1879 to require only domestic raw materials. In 1872, he signed an agreement with Ludvig Nobel, who furnished the machine tools. Under his direction, more than 400,000 Berdanka guns were produced. He created the #4 line carbine. A telegraph office opened at the factory. The factory was re-supplied by rail. It was during these years (with production starting of the Berdan rifle) that the division of labour and machine tool production of gun mechanism components came into its own. The Kalashnikov was invented and manufactured at Ijevsk. The carbine #4 underwent a baptism of fire during the Russo-Turk War. Von Bilderling personally visited the front to evaluate of the effectiveness of this weapon. He was later awarded the right to bear the arms of St George for his actions on the Danube. Wounded in the leg and head, he joined the reserve corps in September 1880. Branobel, Baku oil company Instead of using his