Vase

Country: France

Date of establishment: early twentieth century

Height (cm): 40

PORCELAIN STORY

April 15, 1900 in Paris inaugurated the World Exhibition. This event, dedicated to the beginning of the new twentieth century, was truly grandiose. And not only by the number of visitors. And for a few months they were at the exhibition as many as 55 million (this record was broken only after 67 years at the Expo in Montreal)! The incredible number of architectural, scientific and technical inventions of all mankind simply stunned the imagination of those present.

Judge for yourself. Especially for the exhibition in Paris were built Orsay station (it now houses the famous Orsay Museum), the Grand and Small Palaces, the bridge Alexander III, Lyon station (opposite to which on this occasion even demolished the famous prison Mazas). During the exhibition, the first line of the Paris metro began operating. The trolleybus network was opened. Part of the exhibition program was the Second Olympic Games, which took place for five months. By the way, these were the first games with the participation of women. It was also at that time that competitions in 13 sports out of 20 were held in Paris for the first time in history.

Again for the first time at the 1900 World's Fair, the public was presented with sound (!) movies and working escalators. The famous inventor Rudolf Diesel demonstrated to visitors a diesel engine running on rapeseed oil. And in the Palace of Illusions, a telescope 60 meters long (!) and 1.5 meters in diameter became the center of attention. At that time, this telescope was the largest of all lenticular instruments created in the world.

For us, the Paris exhibition is also interesting because the Grand Prix award was given to the unique work of the blacksmith Alexander Mertsalov, who worked at the Yuzovsky metallurgical plant. The palm tree created by him and his assistant hammer smith Philip Shkarin was made of a single piece of rail -- without welding and joints! The height of Mertsalov's Palm (still depicted on the coat of arms of Donetsk) was 3 meters and 53 centimeters! On its top was located corolla, and around the trunk were hand-forged from steel 10 large leaves. They were springy, forming a whole with the trunk! The Paris newspapers were delighted to describe this miracle created by the hands of talented craftsmen.

Later, the original palm (and it should be noted that several copies of it, created at different times, were presented to Kiev and Odessa) was transferred to the museum of the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg for storage. There it is kept to this day, as numerous requests to return the Palma Mertsalova to Donetsk have not succeeded...