Danila Kondratievich Zverev - specialist in the extraction and evaluation of precious and semiprecious stones in the late 19th - early 20th century. He lived in the Urals. He took part in the creation of works of art from stones. He became the prototype of Danila the master in the works of Bazhov.
Biography
Danila Zverev was born in 1858 in the Urals, in the village of Koltashi. The house where the famous master lived did not survive; now there is a pit in this place. In this village, Zverev lived most of his life.
As a child, he was a shepherd, but he coped with this matter poorly, and he dreamed of something else. Agriculture did not attract him either.
There is a version that Zverev became a mountainman in order not to get into the army. According to family tradition, the prospector’s grandfather was a soldier in adulthood and returned home as an old man. Since then, military service in the Zverev family was considered a heavy punishment and tried to avoid it.
At that time, the miners were not taken into the soldiers, because good specialists brought good revenue to the state treasury. Here Danila and leaned into the highlanders.
Zverev was personally acquainted with Bazhov. Evidence of this is the photograph, preserved to this day in the family archives of descendants.
Danila Kondratievich’s family was large. He was married twice and had two children from two marriages. Their house was two-story, on the ground floor there was a workshop. Danila Kondratievich passed on his skills to his sons.
They turned out to be talented followers worthy of a father.
The sons of the master were engaged in the selection of stones that laid out the stars on the towers in the Kremlin. In addition, Grigory and Alexei Zverev took part in the creation of the most expensive map in the world - the industrialization map of the Soviet Union, which also used gems.
However, over time, Danilo Kondratievich was increasingly drawn to a big city, to new places. In the end, he left his family and went to Yekaterinburg, but he always helped the family.
In 1935, Zverev was seriously ill, perhaps he had a stroke, because the master's speech and consciousness were damaged, paralyzed the entire left half of the body.
December 8, 1938 he died.
Danila master
He studied the "stone" business from Samoila Prokopyevich Yuzhakov, from whom the image of Prokopyich was written off from Bazhov's "Ural Tales".
As in these tales, local residents often worked in the mines and believed in signs indicating successful places, treasures, and deposits of stones. Unlike most “colleagues, ” Zverev relied solely on his own knowledge, experience, and hard work. And they did not fail him. As soon as the snow fell, Danila Zverev left the village, wandered in the forests, near rivers, in protected places - he looked for rare stones.
He did not dig a hole, like many mountaineers, but sorted out the dumps left from gold mining, and there he found many valuable stones. Noted places, looked for signs indicating deposits of stones. Danila never returned home without prey.
Unlike many prospectors, immediately lowering everything they found, Danila was prudent and quick-witted. He bought up the sand remaining after the extraction of gold, and in it he often found large and valuable stones. I also did not squander the finds from my own “excavations”, but kept them, then I sold them profitably. His fame quickly spread far beyond the borders of his native village. The master was known throughout the Urals.
But the famous master did not make wealth. He willingly helped fellow villagers, shared with many. A case is known when he successfully sold an order in Yekaterinburg, he brought two carts of gingerbread to his native village and distributed it to neighbors. Some considered him an eccentric, but most fellow countrymen loved a generous master.
In 1912, Zverev met with Academician A.E. Fersman, who came to Koltashi to study local deposits. This meeting later greatly influenced the fate of the master.
Before the revolution, Zverev moved to Yekaterinburg, where he settled with the son of his teacher, Prokopiy Yuzhakov.
After the revolution, Zverev continued his work. In 1920, the Ilyinsky reserve of the Earth's interior was opened in the southern Urals. One of its founders was well acquainted with Danila A.E. Fersman. He contributed to the numerous development of new deposits, and here the knowledge and experience of Zverev were indispensable. He became an appraiser of mining enterprises and banks. He valued the jewels that remained in the city after rich people who had fled from the Bolsheviks left it. Many treasures were transferred to museums or donated for scientific research.
While the forces allowed, Danila Zverev was engaged in his favorite business - he evaluated and studied stones.
Contribution to the creation of masterpieces
Shortly before World War I, a large-scale exhibition of works of art was held in Paris. Especially for her. In Russia, a map of France was made using the Florentine mosaic method. The selection of stones was done by Danila Zverev. He directly participated in the creation of the exhibit.
Zverev consulted specialists in the selection of a stone for the Lenin Mausoleum.
