Nikolai Vasilievich Nikitin - a famous Soviet architect and civil engineer, specialist in reinforced concrete structures. He lived only 65 years old and he has not been with us for a long time, but the outstanding architectural structures designed by him "live" and benefit people: the Ostankino TV tower, the building of Moscow University, the Luzhniki Stadium, the sculpture "Mother Mother Calls!" in Volgograd - the list is truly impressive.
Childhood and youth
The Nikitin family has long lived in the Siberian city of Tobolsk in the Tyumen region. The father of the future architect, Vasily Vasilyevich Nikitin, was an active and enterprising man: in the early 1900s he left for Chita, where he worked as a typesetter in a printing house for several years; in 1905 he participated in the revolutionary movement, was arrested and sent back to Tobolsk. Along with him came his young wife, Olga Nikolaevna Nikitina (Borozdina). Vasily Vasilievich found work in another specialty: he became secretary and clerk in the Tobolsk provincial court. December 2 (15 according to the old style) in 1907, the son of Nikolai was born to the Nikitins, and two years later the daughter Valentina was born.
But the head of the family did not sit still: in 1911, together with his whole family, he moved to the city of Ishim and opened a private law practice. Olga Nikolaevna, who used to work as a retoucher and helped her father-photographer, opened her own photo studio. In addition, she paid attention to children, studied grammar, reading, arithmetic and drawing with them, so when, in 1915, the 8-year-old Kolya came to enter the parish school, he already knew how to read and write fluently. Two years later, the boy graduated with honors from two classes of this school, and he was immediately admitted to the men's gymnasium. But Nikolai did not study there for long - he finished only the 1st grade: the civil war broke the prosperous life of the family. The Reds were advancing, and in the fall of 1919, together with Kolchak Nikitin's detachments, they left for the city of Novo-Nikolaevsk (Novosibirsk).
Hard times have come: they could not find work, they had to live in the damp basements of the impoverished and criminal district "insolent". Nicholas had to take on household chores: drag water from the river, chop wood, and even cook molasses on the stove, which he himself had built of old brick. The young man was firmly built and very physically strong - he could, for example, swim across the Ob. But once a misfortune happened to him: in the summer of 1924, Nikolai was picking berries in the taiga, and he was bitten by an adder, on which he stepped with his bare foot. For six months he was in the hospital, it was even about amputation of the leg, but then everything worked out. For another six months Nikitin moved on crutches, then learned to walk independently, but limp remained for life.
Secondary and higher education
In Novo-Nikolaevsk, Nikitin graduated with honors from Sovshkol No. 12 named after Timiryazev. His favorite subject was mathematics, and he wanted to go to college for mehmat. However, when he came to enter Dzerzhinsky Siberian Institute of Technology in Tomsk, vacancies were found only at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, whose student in 1925 became Nikolai Nikitin. He studied at the architectural department, and here he benefited from the drawing skills he gained as a child. It was here, under the guidance of an outstanding civil engineer, professor Nikolai Ivanovich Molotilov, student Nikolai Nikitin was first interested in, and then literally “sick” with reinforced concrete structures, the design of buildings and structures made of this material. The talent and dedication of the young man did not go unnoticed: he was appointed the head of the design bureau, collaborating with the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant and developing a method for calculating reinforced concrete standard structures for him.
Career and creativity
In 1930, Nikolai Vasilievich received a diploma from the Siberian Technological Institute (now Tomsk Polytechnic University) about higher education and left for Novosibirsk, where Nikitin designed city buildings as an architect, and then, together with Moscow architects, participated in the construction of the Novosibirsk city station, made amendments and improvements In the project, in particular, he developed arched reinforced concrete ceilings, through which he would later become a famous specialist.
At the same time, Yuri Vasilievich Kondratyuk (Alexander Ignatievich Shargei), an outstanding civil engineer, and also the author of the calculation of the optimal space flight path to the Moon lived and worked in Novosibirsk. Nikitin and Kondratyuk met and became real friends and like-minded people. In 1932, Kondratyuk filed an application for a competition for wind farm projects in the Crimea, on Mount Ai-Petri, and invited Nikitin to collaborate. Nikitin developed a unique reinforced concrete structure, on the side resembling a plane with two engines, mounted on a wing: it is a 150-meter column rotating under the influence of wind, on which wind wheels each with a diameter of 80 meters are mounted. Such a power plant would be able to provide electricity to a significant part of the Crimean peninsula. The project of Kondratyuk and Nikitin won the competition, construction began, but, unfortunately, was not completed due to political reasons. However, the calculations that Nikolai Nikolaevich made at this construction site were later useful to him during the construction of the Ostankino TV tower: the construction of high-rise reinforced concrete structures using the sliding formwork method, the influence of wind load, etc.
In 1937, Nikolai Vasilyevich was invited to Moscow to work in a design workshop - a grandiose project was being prepared for the construction of the Palace of Soviets on the site of the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Since the building was supposed to be an impressive height - 420 meters with a statue of Lenin at the top, Nikitin, as a specialist in high-rise reinforced concrete structures and wind load on them, performed the calculations of the foundation and frame. At the beginning of World War II, construction was stopped, and then completely closed.
The Great Patriotic War
A sick leg did not allow Nikolai Nikitin to go to the front. And he worked with an obsession with a workaholic in Moscow: he developed projects for the quick construction of industrial and military plants and factories, which were massively evacuated to the rear. Since 1942, Nikitin began working at the Moscow Promstroyproekt.
The war brought a lot of grief to all people, it did not go around Nikitin either. In 1942, his friend and associate Yuri Kondratyuk, who left as a volunteer, died at the front. In the same year, Vasily Vasilyevich Nikitin's father was repressed and executed (in 1989 he was rehabilitated).
Architectural masterpieces by Nikitin
Nikolai Vasilievich Nikitin created his main architectural masterpieces after the war. In 1949, construction began on the building of Moscow State University - one of the famous Moscow "skyscrapers". The initial conditions were rather difficult: unstable soil, wind load, etc. Nikitin proposed technical solutions that allowed the building to be built "for centuries", resistant to all kinds of external and internal influences and loads.
Another grandiose construction, in the construction of which Nikolai Nikitin took part, was the monument "Motherland Calls!" - a monument to the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad in Volgograd. Together with the sculptor Yevgeny Viktorovich Vuchetich, Nikitin designed the most complex multi-chamber reinforced concrete structure, hollow inside, 85 meters high. At the time of construction in 1959, this statue was the tallest in the world.
During these years, Nikitin worked as the Chief Designer of the Research Institute for Experimental Design. He was also involved in such projects as the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, a 4-kilometer high skyscraper for Japanese customers (was not implemented), and developed industrial types of residential buildings, etc. In 1966, Nikolai Vasilievich received a doctorate in technical sciences.
Ostankino Tower
The Ostankino Tower is the main creation of design engineer Nikolai Vasilievich Nikitin. He conceived the project back in 1958, and construction began on September 27, 1960. This is an incredibly bold 540-meter-high tower project supported from the inside by steel cables.
Disputes over the strength of the building were long, Nikitin was constantly tormented by claims, criticism, objections and prohibitions. But one way or another, on November 5, 1967, the building of the Ostankino TV tower was put into operation, and for more than half a century it has been serving people. Even the fire in August 2000 could not destroy the structure created by Nikitin: the tower withstood the enormous temperature load, was repaired and again fully operational. The chief designer Nikitin in 1970 was awarded the Lenin Prize, as well as the title of Honored Builder of the RSFSR.
Nervous overstrain during the construction of the Ostankino tower did not pass without a trace for its creator. In addition, children's foot injury began to progress - an ulcer formed on the site of old scars, which rapidly grew. A year before the construction of the Ostankino tower was completed, Nikitin underwent leg amputation surgery, but the disease was not defeated. March 3, 1973 Nikolai Vasilyevich Nikitin died. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow, next to the grave of the famous S.P. Queen. On the monument on the grave of an outstanding person is attached a tablet with a concise inscription: "Engineer Nikolai Vasilyevich Nikitin."
