In the 1830s, the Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers, the first director of which was the famous Spanish engineer and world-class scientist Agustín de Betancourt, was a closed educational institution, modeled after the Cadet Corps. In 1834, a professor of descriptive geometry, Lieutenant-General Carl Pottier, a French engineer who graduated from the Polytechnic School and the School of Bridges and Roads in Paris and served with the consent of Emperor Alexander I, who was invited by Betancourt to Russia, hold a senior position of a director. K. Potier replaced Lieutenant-General Peter Bazin, who was the second director of the Institute, an outstanding mathematician and mechanic, an honorary member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences and famous for his large engineering work in St. Petersburg. P. Bazin transferred the Institute to the jurisdiction of Karl Potier, who had earned high scientific authority among the higher technical educational institutions of the city (except for military universities, in those years in St. Petersburg such institutes as the Mining Institute, Technological Institute, Institute of Civil Engineers, The Royal School of Forestry trained specialists). At that time, the institute had a large library, physical, mineralogical, model and instrument rooms, a laboratory, various workshops, in addition, the institute had its own museum. There were 80 professors, teachers and other employees, and 347 students studied in this educational institution. On October 9, 1836, Major-General A. D. Gotman, a student of the first institute graduate of 1813, a talented pupil of A. Betancourt, who had shown himself in many engineering and construction jobs, was appointed to the position of the director of the institute. Professor A. Sevastyanov became the assistant of Gotman in the educational unit. A. He graduated from the Institute in 1814. The pupils of the institute A. D. Gotman and Ya. A. Sevastyanov, during the first three or four years of their work, transferred the teaching at the institute from French into Russian and began to publish textbooks only in Russian, which greatly facilitated the training of students. Nikolay Ilyich Miklouho found restructuring in the work of the institute, studying first in French, and then in Russian. He took the course of lectures of many outstanding scientists — academicians of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences V. Ya. Bunyakovsky (advanced mathematics), M.V. Ostrogradsky (analytical mechanics and astronomy), G.I. Hess (chemistry), A. Ya. Kupfer, younger brother of Professor of Nezhin Lyceum (physics), as well as professors P. P. Jaco ( architecture), I. A. Sevastyanov (descriptive geometry), I. F. Yastrzhembsky (applied mechanics). Thanks to such wonderful teachers, Nikolay Ilyich brilliantly graduated from the institute in 1840, losing only to Peter Sobko, who later became professor of the institute and was always interested in the fate of his peers. Having received the title of engineer-lieutenant, Nikolay Ilyich was placed under orders of the Corps of Railway Engineers and was assigned to work on connecting the rivers of the Volga and Moscow, carried out by the Third Circuit of Communications. But soon, on February 25, 1843, N.I. Miklouho was transferred to the construction of the Petersburg-Moscow railway. Previously, in March 1841, a special committee was formed to draw up a preliminary draft of the railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow, where the main role was played by P. P. Melnikov and N. O. Kraft. — Professors of the Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers. It was them who prepared the reasoned feasibility studies of this outstanding project. And, as a result, Nikolay I issued a decree on the creation of the Committee of the Petersburg-Moscow Railway on February 1, 1842, which included the Construction Commission under the chairmanship of A. H. Benckendorff, with the participation of P.P. Melnikov, N.O. Kraft and other prominent specialists. P.A. Kleinmichel became the Chief Railroads Officer in August 1842, and the entire construction of the road was reassigned to him. The construction commission was abolished, and its functions were transferred to the Department of Railways, formed as part of the Main Directorate of Communications and Public Buildings. A technical commission was established at the department, which had to consider all projects and cost estimates for the railway. The commission included 6 people, among them P. P. Melnikov and N. O. Kraft. The construction of the road was entrusted to two directorates — Northern, under P. P. Melnikov, laying rails from St. Petersburg to the current station Bologoye, and Southern, under N.O. Kraft, working on the way from Moscow to Bologoye. P.P. Melnikov settled in Chudovo, and N. O. Kraft — in Tver. Investigations were carried out in the field for all summer and autumn in 1842, and many young graduates of the Institute of the Corps of Railway Engineers participated in them. The main prospecting works in the Northern Division were completed in December 1842, and in the Southern — in April 1843. The general direction of the road was mapped by May 1843, the road design was completed and submitted to the department for approval. The construction of the road began in the summer of 1843 after approval of the results of design and survey work. Each directorate was divided into 6 sections, and each section was responsible for construction at a distance of 10-12 km. Railway engineers were appointed at the head of the sections and distances, in total there were 79 people. At that time, under the general guidance of P. P. Melnikov, the work of Nikolay Ilyich Miklouho began as the head of the distance in the Northern Directorate. In July 1846, Nikolay Ilyich, as stated in his track record, was appointed «assistant to the head of the experimental track from the St. Petersburg passenger station, to the Aleksandrovsky Mechanical Institute of the St. Petersburg Railway», and the Railway engineer Pyotr Klokov was the chief of the experimental track. On May 7, 1847, a 27 km long experimental track was put into operation, and the working movement of freight and passenger trains opened on it (traffic on the highway began in parts as the individual sections were ready). This was the merit of Nicholay Ilyich as the first official to send trains from St. Petersburg. On March 6, 1848, Nikolai Ilyich was appointed head of the St. Petersburg Passenger Station of the Petersburg-Moscow Railway and, at the same time, the head of the station, whose construction had not yet been completed. The construction of the capital’s railway station was started in 1844 by the approved by the emperor project of the famous architect K. A. Thon. However, due to the departure of K. A. Thon for 5 months abroad, the architect R.A. Zhelyazevich was involved in observation over the construction — seven sheets of drawings for the construction of a passenger station in St. Petersburg, dated 1845 and signed by Zhelyazevich, have been preserved in the archives. Architect Thon had not been participating in the construction of the station from 1847. Nikolay Ilyich remained station master until August 1849. After that, on August 11, he was transferred to a more responsible job — under the supervision of N. O. Kraft, he became the head of the experimental track of the Petersburg-Moscow railway at the section of the Southern Directorate, between Vyshny Volochok and Tver. This experimental track was opened in October 1849. There, along the Mariinsky water system, locomotives were delivered in disassembled form. There they were assembled and put on rails. Therefore, the importance of the section to which Nikolay Ilyich was sent was especially important for the organization of the movement from Bologoye to Moscow. The movement of passenger trains was opened according to the schedule and with the sale of tickets in the same October 1849, on the section from Vyshny Volochok to Tver (this section had been ready for the movement of work trains by late August). Nikolay Ilyich wrote in December 1849: «The first train of the appointed correct (by the timetable — note of the author) passenger traffic on the railway between Vyshniy Volochkom and Tver departed from Tver in the morning at 10 o’clock and arrived in Volochek on the same day safely. There were no stops and delays on stations on the way. » The first Russian machinists on this experimental track were Ivan Plotnikov and Vasily Isayev. On November 1, 1851, the Petersburg-Moscow railway was put into permanent operation. In this connection, in September 1851, Nikolay Ilyich headed the VI, and in July 1852 — the IV branch of the first two-way main line of Russia (with residence in St. Petersburg). He became one of the first Railway Engineers in Russia, who mastered the operational direction in their practical work on rail transport. With the participation of all the chiefs of the road sections, including Nikolay Ilyich Miklouho, in 1854, for the first time in Russia, a train schedule was introduced within the entire trunk line. Engineer Miklouho initiated the device on the experimental section of the Petersburg-Moscow railway fence hedgehogs, to protect the road’s upper road from snowdrifts. In a letter to N. O. Kraft dated March 16, 1850, Nikolay Ilyich noted that «the rows of fir trees that were put up this winter in the experimental track along its entire length very well protected the road from snowdrifts. Fir trees were put where the road goes along a horizontal terrain or a small elevation or a lowering above it, as the road goes into and out of the ditch. It is required about 4 thousand fir trees on a verst ». The working conditions of N.I. Miklouho, especially at first, were extremely difficult. The length of the marshes in the area of the Northern Directorate, from St. Petersburg to Bologoye, was 36% of the total section, and the total length of marshes crossed by the railway reached 170 km. The builders, most of them bonds from Belorussia, about 1,000 people on the N.I. Miklouho’s section, often worked in waist-deep water. About 100 million cubic meters of excavation work was performed by their hands, that is, 160,000 cubic meters per km. This colossal volume indicates an unbearable load of each worker. In addition, it must be taken into account that the workers lived on site in simple wooden barracks, in huts, in dugouts or in canvas tents. Dozens of workers had to live under one roof. Bad food, a lot of crowding, dirt, lack of baths and simple latrines, caused the spread of infectious diseases. Often, typhus and scurvy raged on the construction site, cholera cases were noted, which led to serious illnesses, and often to death. Only in January-February 1846, 357 people died on the sections of the Northern Directorate. 35,000 people worked on the whole highway, of which several thousand were killed by hunger and disease. Nikolay Ilyich was often among the workers, supporting them with his attention and care, providing them with necessary breaks for rest and changing clothes, negotiating with contractors to improve their working conditions. For this the workers responded him with love and respect. Nikolay Ilyich, with his family, always lived in the construction area, often in the same tents as the workers, worked without holidays and sometimes without days off. And this eight-year bivouac life could not but affect his health, it was sapped, and he began to get tired more. Only the support of his wife, and the joy of communicating with children, gave him the strength to work further. Nikolay Ilyich was a man with a spacious mind, and he took interest not only in technical literature — poetry and music always occupied a great deal in his soul. And acquaintance with the poet Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy was a significant event for him. Tolstoy acquainted Nikolay Ilyich with N.A. Nekrasov and A. I. Herzen. The Herzens were friends with the family of Nikolay Ilyich as well It is noteworthy that Nikolay Ilyich did not interrupt his correspondence with Herzen even after he emigrated to England, and this circumstance did not escape the attention of the police. N.I. Miklouho painfully experienced the arrest and exile of T.G. Shevchenko, whom he deeply respected as the author of «Kobzar» and other freedom-loving works. At the time when T. G. Shevchenko was languishing in exile in the Orenburg region, Nikolay Ilyich sent Shevchenko 150 rubles to Alexandrovsky Fort, very significant sum at the time. Police and even Alexander II himself did not appreciate it. And in 1856 Nikolay Ilyich was dismissed from the post of the head of the road section, because of the beginning of the investigation in the case of ties with the repressed T. G. Shevchenko. On December 20, 1857 (January 2, 1858 according to a new style), and not having celebrated his fortieth anniversary, in the prime of his creative powers, Nikolay Ilyich died of transient pulmonary tuberculosis. His wife left with five children — the oldest son was 12 years old, and the youngest only 1.5 year old. The engineer-captain was buried at Volkovsky Orthodox cemetery in St. Petersburg. In 1938, his ashes were reburied in the territory, which in 1885 was named «Literatorskie mostki». In 1867, at the station Lyuban, Nikolayevskaya railway, the stone Petropavlovsk church, built according to the project of K. A. Thon was consecrated and built on folk means and the donation of P. P. Melnikov, which was half of the amount necessary for the construction of the temple. The names of all engineers who built the road were carved on the marble plaque placed at the entrance to the church, including the surname of N.I. Miklouho. Unfortunately, this board was destroyed during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, when the church itself suffered greatly. In 1901, the board of management of the Nikolayev Railroad decided to consider the Peter and Paul Church at Luban station, as a memorial church of the Nikolayevskaya Railway. In 2000, after the completion of the restoration of the Peter and Paul Church destroyed in wartime, this temple was consecrated by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II. Restoration of the temple was held for charitable funds of workers of the October Railway, who supported the proposal of the road’s head and Minister of Railways A. A. Zaitsev about the need for restoration of the church.
Nikolay Ilyich had an amazing family. His wife and five children went down in the history of Russia, just like N.I. Miklouho himself. In the spring of 1843, Semyon Ivanovich Becker, an old friend of Ilya Stepanovich Miklouho, who had known him from the time of the Patriotic War of 1812, came to the section of the road where Nikolay Ilyich worked, in connection with the prevention of plague. In the summer of 1843, Nikolay Ilyich returned to Moscow, visiting Becker, where he met Semen Ivanovich’s daughter, Catherine, who later became his wife. Becker had seven children, and the daughter Catherine was the fourth. Beckers themselves originated from Russified Germans who came to Russia under Catherine II. Catherine Semyonovna’s grandfather was the medical physician of the Polish King Stanislaw Poniatowski, to whose service he came from Prussia on behalf of the Prussian king, and her father was married to Polka Louise Shatkovskaya, who came from the city of Vilna and died in 1874 in Kiev.
