By Vestnik Kavkaza
In March, it will be five years since death of the legendary Baku resident who was one of the pioneers of the Soviet oil and gas industry – Nikolai Baibakov. His employment history – from the oil engineer to the deputy chairman of the USSR Ministers Council and the Gosplan’s head – 70 years.
The father of Nikolai Baibakov had worked in Belarus smith’s shops until coming to the cradle of oil industry – Baku – where he found a job in the company of Nobel Brothers. Later Baibakov said that it was working Baku that raised him. He was growing up with a Soviet hope for beautiful future of his country because he knew that his city and its oil deposits contained huge resources.
In 1928 Baibakov entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute, the most prestigious university of the republic. At that time it was the cherished dream of all Baku boys who knew the formula of industrialization: “Oil is blood of industry, i.e. of life itself.” After lectures students headed to deposits and faced the industry in practice.
The oil industry experienced technical re-equipment. Baibakov became an engineer at the Lenin deposit where he invented a method of cement squeezing into water lay under high pressure. Today all oil-workers call it “Baibalov’s method.” In 1935 engineering dreams of the young oil-worker were broken by recruited into army. Baibakov was sent to the Far East where he serviced in an artillery regiment and became a commander. The artillery of a regiment was based on horse power. Six horses pulled one cannon. Horses were patient and trusting, and difficult service seemed easier for soldiers. There Baibakov became a professional rider.
After the army Baibakov returned to Baku and began working as a director of a deposit. Few months later he was shifted to the position of the head engineer of Leninneft Trust. Then, he became the head of the trust. Since that time his career went up. In 1938 Baibakov told the pan-Union assembly of oil-workers about implementation of new technologies and about a growth of oil production, as well as about disadvantages of the industry. Kaganovich who was the chairman of the assembly was impressed and appointed Baibalov to the position of a head of the union vostokneftedobycha in Kuibyshev (current Samara). The point was in establishing the oil-producing region between the Volga and Ural – “second Baku.” However, Baibakov soon left the position.
In 1939 the People’s Commissariat of Fuel Industry established the Head Department on Oil Production in Eastern Regions of the country, and Baibakov was appointed to the position of the head of the Department. A year later he became the deputy people’s commissioner of fuel industry under Koganovich. Baibakov said that “the iron commissioner” didn’t know oil business well and often ignored views of professionals. Probably that is why it was Baibakov who came to the Kremlin and reported on provision of economy and the army with fuel in the context of the growing military threat. Stalin and Baibakov liked each other. He was proud to be Stalin’s student.
Ahead of the war Baibakov met his destiny. It was a girl named Klava who worked as a construction secretary after graduation. Once she brought a document for signing to Baibakov. He fell in love and soon proposed Klava. They lived together for 43 years.
To be continued
