Mikhail Boreskov

Boreskov, Mikhail Matveevich 

Born Apr. 19 (May 1), 1829, in St. Petersburg; died Feb. 17 (Mar. 1), 1898, in St. Petersburg. Russian military engineer, working mainly in the areas of mine warfare and military electrical engineering. Lieutenant general.

Boreskov graduated from the Main Engineering College in St. Petersburg (1849). During the Crimean War (1853–56) he was involved in installing mine fields at the mouth of the Danube and Bug rivers and the estuary of the Dnieper, and he conducted blasting operations to destroy Danube fortresses. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, Boreskov directed the mine operations of the army and organized the installation of mine fields in the Danube. Boreskov was one of the organizers and instructors of the Mine Officers Class at Kronstadt and the Military Electrical Engineering School in St. Petersburg. He devised methods of using electricity in engineering (mainly in military mines) and supervised jobs using explosives to deepen ports, river channels, and estuaries. His method of calculating charges (the so-called Boreskov formula) is used to this day in forming excavations and rock-fill dams by blasting. Boreskov was an honorary member of the Electrical Engineering Society, the Russian Physical Chemistry Society, and the Russian Engineering Society.

WORKS

Rukovodstvo po minnomu iskusstvu v primenenii ego k podvodnym oboronitel’nym minam i gidrotekhnicheskim rabotam. St. Petersburg, 1876.

REFERENCE

Shneiberg, la. A. Mikhail Matveevich Boreskov (1829–1898). Moscow-Leningrad, 1951. (Contains a list of Boreskov’s works.)