Zvorykin is the inventor of the television. Literary and historical notes of a young technician

Russian tourists checked into this hotel. The guide talked about the hotel, excursions and rules of behavior at the hotel, food regime. Everyone recommended visiting the Turkish bath - Hamam:
- On the first day of your arrival, you must go to the hammam, they will clean you there, exfoliate your whole body, old skin They will take off a special glove, apply foam, and give you a professional massage of the whole body. After this, you will tan quickly and will not burn, unless of course you use sunscreen. Take the bronze ones home and everyone will envy you. Children will get a free foam massage; they are not allowed to peel. There are fish in an aquarium where you can sit with your feet in it and the fish will exfoliate your feet.
Those interested signed up for the hammam.

Tatiana's story.
In the summer, the Galkin family went on vacation to Turkey and Tatyana thought that here her husband Valery would have time and energy for his wife, but alas, Tatyana was in a “bummer.” He was constantly rushing to the room to literally this word sleep. Tatyana constantly walked around the hotel alone, on the beach her husband sunbathed again and slept, sometimes swam, if he wasn’t sitting at the bar with freebies
cold beer.
Towards the end of their vacation, Valery signed his wife up for a series of massages. He himself did not like massages, but he knew how much Tatyana adored them. Tatyana really liked the massages and this massage made her very excited.

Tatiana married girl who loves her husband, but there is one drawback in their relationship - her husband does not know how to show his feelings. He loves her very much, Tatyana knows for sure, but as for “caressing her,” he always has no time, he is always at work and tired. Even to get him into bed “not for sleeping,” the girl has to show all her feminine tricks. In response to her kisses and hugs, she always hears only one thing: “Don’t bother me, I’m working.” She has already repeatedly told him that it is she who is not happy with their relationship, but he always says that she is doing nonsense.

How strange it is that a young massage therapist named Kanul noticed her excitement, but only dared to take advantage of this situation on her third visit to him. At first, desire washed over her, and then the woman’s sense of conscience overcame her, and things didn’t come to anything.
Arriving at her husband’s room, Tatyana once said:
- Maybe I shouldn’t go to massages anymore? It seems like I feel good and I don’t need any more, I guess?
Valery did not know anything about her arousal from the massage therapist and replied:
- I need to get it to you, I’ve already paid for all the sessions.

The next day they were supposed to go on an excursion, Tatyana could not sleep all night and kept tormented - how is this possible, this masseur, massages...
Tatiana spent half a day on the excursion sleepy and exhausted. After the excursion, she again had to go for a massage. This time she could no longer restrain herself under the skillful hands of Kanul, and not only her, as she later found out.

Tatyana’s conscience no longer tormented her so much, apparently one sleepless night was enough for this. She experienced two days of passion, tenderness and love that she had been missing for so long. She left him her coordinates so she could correspond on the Internet.
Tatyana was sitting at the bar near the pool and drinking a cocktail, next to her sat the “Gestrelation” girl from the reception and drinking coffee. The husband was lying on a sun lounger by the pool. A woman, who looked to be about 50 years old, approached the bar with a teenage girl, about 12 years old. She took the girl a Sprite and ordered vodka with Red Bull for herself and said to the girl:
- You go to the pool for a swim, I’m going for a massage now, I’ll be gone for 1 hour, look, be careful in the water.
Tatyana asked:
- Excuse me, are you going for a massage? Who do you go to? I also go for massages.
The woman looked at Tatyana appraisingly and, after thinking something, replied:
- I go to Abdullah. And you?
- I'm going to Kanul.
“Ufff, thank God,” that woman exhaled.
- What's happened? - Tatyana didn’t understand.
- Yes, I fell in love with one massage therapist, Abdullah. I'm thinking about divorcing my husband.
- What are you talking about? Is everything really that bad with your husband? What is your name? I'm Tatyana.
- And I'm Claudia. Yes, my husband is a goat, he doesn’t pay attention to me, I think he walks to the left.
- So here everyone is like that, every day new girls come, they are tempted...
- No, Abdullah is not like that. He only loves me.
- How old is he? And you?
- He is 28 years old, and I am 30 years old.
Tatyana looked at her interlocutor and thought: “He’s lying, he’s an infection, it’s clear that he’s 50 years old, no less.” But she said:
- I wouldn’t have thought that you were 30, I thought you were older.
“Everyone is young on vacation,” answered Claudia.
- Well, the Turks want young and beautiful people, but we are no longer girls - “pretty girls”.
“No, Abdul said that he wants to marry me,” Claudia presses her point of view.
Here the “Gestrelation” girl couldn’t stand it, she heard the whole conversation and intervened in the conversation:
- Don't mess with him. Don't think that he is such an angel, the whole hotel knows him. He's a genetic freak, he's a rare bastard, he takes pictures intimate parts women, and then shows everyone around the hotel. He's really sick in the head. Even the staff at the hotel doesn’t greet him.
- You don’t understand, he kisses my fingers, even on my toes, he can’t touch anyone except me, and you know, he asked me to buy his season for 12,000 euros, since he simply won’t be able to touch anymore to other women! He will die if he has to give massages to others and touch their bodies, at a time when he only thinks about me. And his boss confirmed this to me, and said that he could lose the most first-class massage therapist because of his love for me. - Claudia defended her position.
- Well, of course, here you immediately want to believe in “love”, for 12,000 euros. “He wants money from you,” said the girl from the reception.
They also talked about the selfish plans of Klava’s suitor, but they failed to convince the woman:
“I’ll stick to my opinion, okay, I went on a date for a massage with my beloved,” and Claudia left.

After the Galkin family left, life went on as usual, but only Tatyana began to correspond with the boy-masseur. Although not everything was as usual, she wanted to go to him again. He really disappeared, he didn’t know Russian, but he understood a lot, so
They corresponded with the help of his friend.
2 months after the trip with her husband, Tatyana insisted on another trip to Turkey. Already alone and just to meet her massage therapist. She spent all nights with him, but he fell in love with her very much and wants Tatyana to become his wife. He really wanted her to give birth to a child, and tried to make one for her. When she left, Kanul was upset, he even cried
rolled on my cheek.

Tatyana corresponds with the massage therapist, he wants her to come to him and start their own family. Tatyana seems to have decided that she wants to stay with her husband, because most likely she will not be able to live in Turkey the way they live. But he doesn’t know how to write to the Turkish woman that she will not become his wife. She feels so sorry for him. He is very serious, he is 27 years old and he already wants to start a family. And he wants to start a family with Tatyana.

Claudia, coming for a massage, saw another young girl, her name was Nastya, who came for the first time to a session, but to a different massage therapist. They changed clothes together in the women's stall. Claudia immediately went for a massage, she was met by her beloved Turk. The girl was invited to the sauna to warm up, and to the hammam for cleaning. She left there satisfied:
- What a bathhouse! Very useful and very cool. I didn’t expect, however, that they would take off my bra and wrap my panties up to the “I can’t” part. Mustafa the bathhouse attendant, so funny all the time
He said: “Allah, Allah.” I'm also afraid of tickling.
After foam - water procedures the girl went for a massage.
A Russian-speaking Turkish massage therapist rubs oil over Nastya’s body and for some reason starts the massage from the legs, and not from the collar area, as is customary in Russia, asks Nastya:
- What is your name?
- Nastya.
- And how old are you? Is your job sedentary or often walking? You have a lot of stress, you need to get massages.
- I’m 25, yes, the job is mostly standing, I work as a salesperson.
- Do you have a husband? Children?
- Yes, I have a husband, no children yet.
Nastya, not suspecting anything wrong, answers the questions, thinking that this relates to her health. And he feels that the masseur has unbuttoned the top of his swimsuit and thinks: “Well, that’s probably how it should be. Oh, why touch the chest so deeply... and why the inner thigh, it’s generally prohibited in massage...”
The girl lies on her stomach, her arms are crossed above her head, and suddenly she feels something elastic and obviously huge in size rubbing against them with all her might. Nastya raises her head, and in front of her face is a huge male “thing”... the likes of which she has never seen in her modest experience... In horror, she jumps up from the couch, trying to fasten her swimsuit as she goes...
- Where are you going, I haven’t finished the massage yet.
Nastya ran out of the office like a bullet and on the way cursed herself for not knowing Turkish language, does not know how and to whom to complain about the “arthropod” massage therapist, because not all Turks understand English, and how can you express it in English language those feelings that she experienced then in Russian!

Having run out, Nastya went to complain about this massage therapist, she was offered another massage therapist, Mehmet. She agreed, the money was paid. She left the massage therapist very happy and satisfied. Apparently the massage therapist tried, so as not to tarnish his reputation, to work off the sins of others. Nastya signed up with him for a series of massages.

She later told other women:
- Mehmet gives the best massage. Turkish guys are ready to do anything for you, they have absolutely no complexes, not like our Russian guys. When it comes to sex, Turks are completely liberated.
I still remember it with pleasure for 3 weeks now. The girls, it’s true, are pestering. But how skillfully! Breathtaking! All erotic fantasies came true. Beautiful, there are simply no words. It’s not for nothing that our women go to the Turks, it’s not for nothing. Every time I came for a massage, I always came up with something new and every time I invited her somewhere in the evening, at least to drink coffee. I explained - I’m with my husband, it doesn’t matter. While my husband was pumping himself up with Turkish “swill,” I was getting maximum pleasure. I recommend it to everyone, great pleasure. I understand, of course, that everything depends on the staff themselves, but I was very lucky with this.

Nastya left, but the flow of new tourists does not dry up. Of these, another woman is Nyura.

The story of Nyura.
The Barinko family came on vacation with their child. We went for two weeks in order to somehow refresh family relationships; they had been together for 10 years and the relationship began to fade away.
After an advertisement for a hotel guide, Nyura decided to go to the hammam, but before that she decided to consult with those who already go for massages and personally see the professionalism of the massage therapists. She came to the hammam and saw a happy Claudia there, lying on a sunbed after a massage and drinking tea.
- Hello! Who speaks Russian here?
“Yes, there are, but they are having massages now,” Claudia answered.
-Are you already after the massage?
- Yes, I have a massage session.
- And I just wanted to get some advice, is it worth going?
- Yes, of course it’s worth it! They do very well. If there are problems, they will give you another massage therapist. Now there was a girl, she didn’t like it, so they gave her another one, she left happy.
- Well, then I’ll sign up too, but who should I sign up with?
- And there’s a guy sitting there, he doesn’t understand Russian, he only speaks English. If you want I will help you if you don't speak English.
“Yes, I know a little English, but if you want, then please,” answered Nyura.
Claudia called the guy, and he signed her up for 10 massage sessions, starting tomorrow. Claudia made sure that Nyura did not end up with her beloved Turk. Nyura got a 25-year-old massage therapist named Zahid.

The next day, Nyura came every day for massages. The first couple of massages she just lay there, enjoying herself, the masseur didn’t even talk to her. He didn’t know Russian well and therefore was embarrassed when he tried to say something. Then Nyura began to ask him about Turkey, about his work, about his family. For a couple of more massages, they occasionally talked with him about this and that, as much as possible. He taught her some Turkish words, and she taught him Russian.
On the fifth massage, Nyura felt that the massage technique had somehow changed, he held her hand so tightly and looked intently into her eyes that she felt dizzy. Zahid began to massage some erotic points that Nyura flew away somewhere, she felt very pleased, and she immediately experienced an orgasm. The masseur saw this and smiled. Nyura was ashamed that she could not resist.

After that, Nyura went on the Internet and began to study the behavior of Turkish men, where she read that everything was going towards the same thing. At the next massage he asked:
-Can we meet in the evening?
Nyura replied:
- Of course not! I'm married. I have a husband here.
After that, she decided not to go for massages anymore, so as not to tempt herself. But after a couple of days I had a very strong quarrel with my husband and decided: “I was there, I wasn’t, but I’ll meet this Turk.” Nyura came for a massage again, and he again invited her to meet in the evening. She agreed. In the evening they went with him to a nearby cafe, drank coffee and talked. Zahid seemed to her to be quite well-mannered and not stupid. There were no advances or hints. He told about himself:
- I’ve been working as a massage therapist for the second year, I rent an apartment with my friends, and during the off-season I live with my parents, sisters and brother in a small village. I served in the army and went to college. I want to work as a massage therapist for one more year, and then I will look for a more stable job.
- Do you have many women per season? - asked Nyura.
The guy was embarrassed, but answered:
- A little, but it happens. I'm a young guy, I haven't met my only girlfriend yet, and I can afford to spend time for my own pleasure.
So they met a couple more times, and she was pleased with his company, and then Nyura thought: “Just flirting! A little romance! I’ll leave and won’t remember!”
When there were two days left before departure, Nyura and Zahid were walking on the shore and somehow imperceptibly began to kiss and hug. He suggested going to the house of his cousin, who and his wife had gone to their parents. She agreed. They came, sat, drank coffee, and of course had sex. The sex was wonderful. She had never had sex like this in all her years. She didn’t even have this with her husband. It’s a shame, of course, the Turks know their business, and women are so pliable and weak at the front.
Afterwards he accompanied Nyura to the hotel. The next day everything happened again. He said that he would like her to come to next year, but not to the hotel, but to him, in a separate apartment. Nyura then laughed, saying:
- We are adults and must understand that this was not serious, and we are unlikely to meet again.

But when a bus arrived at the hotel, taking them to the airport, Nyura realized that she was caught up in a love story. She wanted to run away, hide and stay in Turkey. Upon arrival home, she texted him that she had arrived and everything was fine. He called her, then they began to correspond. All this time Nyura was going crazy, she really wanted to see him, but she was silent, afraid of looking stupid.
Slowly their correspondence became loving, tender and pleasant, never vulgar. One day he asked:
- If you end up with me, how will your family react?
- Time will tell, I will never abandon my child.
“Have you thought about it well, do you understand what you’re getting into if you decide to come to me?”
- We need to make the right decision, I don’t know yet.
He agreed with her.
- I know that everyone Turkish men All you need is sex and money from foreigners, isn’t it?
“You insulted me with these words, and if you think so, then we need to stop communicating.” All people are different, one size does not fit everyone, love and family well-being cannot be bought with money. “I love you with all my heart,” Zahid said.
- Well, I'm sorry, don't be offended.
Nyura apologized, but he was still offended, although he said that everything was “ok”.
Nyura's husband guessed everything, because she walked around the house like a ghost with glass eyes, only her daughter could bring her out of this state. Husband said:
- You'll lose your temper and everything will be forgotten.
Nyura did not expect such a reaction from him. She was confused.

Nyura finds no place for herself, all thoughts are only about him. He sits all day long, thinking about what, and how, what the right thing to do. She tries to find flaws in him in order to get him out of her head, but she understands that it is difficult to find flaws in a person who is 4000 km away from her. He really wants to go to his Turk, but he understands that if he leaves, he will completely lose his family, and if he doesn’t leave, he won’t understand - this is love, passion, then he will definitely regret it. That's why the Turks are so catchy? It's been gut wrenching for over a month now. I would like to forget everything, but I can’t. I’ve never been known for being frivolous, but here I don’t recognize myself.

V. Zvorykin

Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin was born 17 (29) July 1889 in the city of Murom Vladimir province in a merchant family.

Father - merchant of the 1st guild Kozma Zvorykin, who traded bread, owned steamships and was the former chairman of the Murom Public Bank. In his autobiography, V. Zvorykin himself characterizes his father as a man of progressive ideas, who was also the head of Murom for one term.

• From childhood, the father tried to accustom his children to socially useful work, writes Zvorykin. He himself, according to him, showed an interest in technology from his youth. After graduating from the Murom Real School, in 1906 he entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. Takes part in student unrest. Moreover, having been captured while distributing leaflets calling for democratic reforms and elections to the Second Duma, he spends two weeks in prison with his student friends. The student period is also significant for the future engineering genius fateful meeting with Professor Boris Rosing, author of pioneering work on electronic image transmission at a distance. The young engineer begins to devote a lot of attention to his work as Rosing's assistant in a special laboratory. In addition to Rosing’s scientific ideas, the autobiography tells, the student Zvorykin was greatly impressed by his foreign trip to industrial plants in Germany, Belgium, France and England, which took place under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce.
• Having received a diploma in electrical engineering in 1912, Zvorykin went to study at the Paris College de France with the outstanding physicist Paul Langevin. Then, despite his father’s absentee attempts to involve his son in the common Murom cause, he continued his studies at the University of Berlin. Shortly after returning to Russia via Denmark and Finland during World War I, Zvorykin was drafted into the army. For a year and a half in Grodno, he was responsible for setting up and equipping radio stations. Meets the February Revolution in Petrograd with the rank of lieutenant, working as a teacher at an officer radio school.
• After the October Revolution, the Bolshevik government nationalized my father’s business and the magnificent family house above the Oka River in Murom. Established scientific and industrial ties have been destroyed.
• The talented young man recalls that he “had friends in a large cooperative organization that had its representative offices in America and the Siberian city of Omsk.” He managed to receive an invitation from these friends to go there to carry out an official assignment. Having stocked up with a lot of official papers, he goes to Siberia. Wandering around Russia (by train to Nizhny Novgorod, then along the Kama by steamship to Perm, from there again by train to Yekaterinburg and again by train to Omsk), the young man eventually arrives at a meeting with representatives of the Siberian government of Russia. The government sends him to the United States to negotiate the supply of radio equipment. Since Omsk was cut off on all sides except the north by warring factions, Zvorykin joins Arctic expedition and is melted over the course of a half-month through the Kara Sea by steamer along the Irtysh and Ob rivers to the island of Vaigach. At the end of the journey he reaches a radio station located between the islands of Vaygach and New Earth and built to report on ice conditions in this part of the ocean. After waiting for the icebreaker, a few weeks later Zvorykin reaches Arkhangelsk, occupied by the troops of the allied Entente. Having received visas and made stops along the way in Norway, Denmark and England, on the eve of 1919 he finally arrived in the United States.
• “Soon after arriving, I found the office of a cooperative organization, to which I owed a business trip and a trip,” the researcher recalls. There, a young engineer is studying radio equipment. But “in the spring, an order was received from the Siberian government for me to return to Omsk. They needed a radio specialist, and I also had to bring some radio equipment parts.” And he goes back. The main map of his route is as follows: Seattle - Yokohama - Vladivostok. And in January 1919, Zvorykin symbolically completed his trip around the world, returning to Omsk, this time through the Pacific Ocean, Japan, Vladivostok and Harbin. An adventure that seemed so incredible that initially Albert Abramson, the biographer of the outstanding inventor, did not believe in the authenticity of Zvorykin’s story.
• After some time, Zvorykin - already during the reign of Admiral Kolchak - left for the USA again. This time free from obligations to anyone.
• He arrives without recommendations, and, moreover, speaks practically no English. As news from his homeland, he brings with him a jar of myrrh - a blessed oil used in church services, which the Russian Orthodox Church asked to hand it over to the head of the Russian Church in the USA.
• The future world genius was lucky: sensing his potential, Zvorykin was initially taken under the wing of the Russian Ambassador to the USA B.A. Bakhmetyev. (The fate of Bakhmetyev himself is noteworthy: the United States is in no hurry to recognize the Bolshevik government. And a former professor at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, Bakhmetyev still manages the activities of the embassy, ​​information bureau and purchasing commission of Russia in the United States.) Zvorykin is enlisted on the staff of the purchasing commission based in New York. In his autobiography, the manuscript of which is kept in the Pittsburgh Museum, you can read: “... Worked as an accountant.”
• The newly minted emigrant persistently sends dozens of letters to various companies offering his services as a radio electronics specialist. As a result, he is invited to work at the Westinghouse research laboratory (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). (I worked in this company large group emigrants from the former Russian Empire. In particular, Stepan Timoshenko, a specialist in the strength of materials, whose books have been translated into many languages.) The young radio engineer’s desire to work in his specialty is so great that, according to historians, he was not embarrassed by the size of the salary, half that of the procurement commission. Zvorykin did not immediately have the opportunity to study television in the Pittsburgh laboratory. He worked fanatically: the Westinghouse security guards were ordered by management to send the scientist home if the windows of his laboratory were lit after 2 am.
• In 1923, Zworykin finally got the opportunity to begin implementing the idea of ​​​​creating electronic television. And in the same year, he drew up a patent application in which he fully described the electronic television system. The US Patent Office refused Zworykin on the grounds that the photosensitive plate for the transmitting tube (that is, a television camera) described in the application does not exist in reality and there are serious doubts about the possibility of its creation under existing conditions. Then he takes a time out and completely switches to the official task of Westinghouse - the development of photovoltaic cells, which have begun to be actively introduced in engineering and industrial construction. It was this, as he himself admitted, uninteresting work that made his name known in Pittsburgh itself (in 1926 the University of Pittsburgh awarded him doctorate), and beyond.
• At the same time, the inventor did not stop doing his work related to television.
• “By that time,” he later recalled, “I realized that work on an idea that could lead to commercial success must be camouflaged until the possibility of making a profit became obvious to business people.” In order to move from experiments to pilot production, a representative of large business was needed.
• And such a representative appeared in the person of compatriot David Sarnov, president of Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Sarnov was born into a poor Jewish family in the town of Uzlyany (modern Belarus) and was brought to the United States by his parents at the age of nine. David Abramovich spoke both Russian and English perfectly; was a completely assimilated American. Behind Sarnov is the path from an ordinary employee of the Marcorni company to the head of a huge corporation.
• After talking with Zworykin, he, unlike other American bosses, believed in his ideas and became his boss and patron for many years. Sarnov subsequently recalled that in response to a question about the estimated cost of the project, Zvorykin asked for a “modest” $100,000. In fact, the design work cost a hundred times that amount, and the company began to receive its first income from television when the total investment exceeded $50 million. In 1929, Zvorykin began working at the RCA branch located in Camden (New Jersey). In 1931, he created the final design of the transmitting tube iconoscope, which became the basis for the future electronic television system. After a series of practical tests carried out in Camden, a 2.5 kW television transmitting station is installed on the tallest building in New York - the Empire State Building. RCA factories begin to produce televisions with a picture tube designed by Zvorykin. Residents of New York and surrounding areas within a radius of up to 100 km are becoming the first subscribers to electronic television. By 1933, Zvorykin and his employees completed the creation of an electronic television system. The birth of the television can be dated back to 1933, when Vladimir Zvorykin spoke at the annual conference of the American Society of Radio Engineers. In his report “Iconoscope - a modern version of the electric eye,” the scientist summed up the results of many years of work. He invented a device capable of transmitting the resulting image of an object to the screen of a cathode ray tube, that is, a kinescope. The new development became one of the most outstanding inventions of its time and is deservedly called the “miracle of the twentieth century.”
• For the sake of objectivity, we note that not only Zvorykin claimed the title of inventor of television. In the late twenties, yesterday's schoolboy Philo Farnsworth, a self-taught person from Idaho, who, with the support of philanthropists Leslie Gorell and George Everson, founded his own laboratory in San Francisco, is developing a system for transmitting signals at a distance. Farnsworth’s contribution to the creation of electronic TV is “weighty and undeniable,” writes the modern Russian magazine Popular Mechanics. But the Image Dissector of the 1928 model, developed by him, was of little use for creating television equipment. Zworykin managed to do what Philo Farnsworth and his equally talented like-minded friend and competitor, Hungarian Kalman Tihanyi, who filed an application for his invention with the US Patent Office in 1928, failed. All issues related to the recognition of the priority and authorship of Vladimir Zvorykin are described in detail in the book by television history researcher Albert Abramson. It also says that RCA President David Sarnov, in order to avoid conflicts in this issue and, guided by commercial interests, bought his patents from Farnsworth for $1 million. He also acquired the patent of the Hungarian inventor.
• In the second half of the 1930s, the threat of war became increasingly obvious. Many leading American corporations receive military orders. During these years, Zvorykin was mainly engaged in the problems of electronic optics, working together with I. Langmuir, J. Morton, L. Malter... Research in the field of electron-optical transformations led to the creation of a night vision device operating in the infrared range. During World War II, night vision devices designed by Zvorykin were used by the US Army to equip tanks and vehicles, and also as sights. It was he who developed the first television-controlled aerial bomb, which had an iconoscope that transmitted a picture to the operator. A little later, it was his laboratory that prepared a night vision device, which was immediately adopted by snipers, tank crews and operators. Albert Abramson, in his voluminous study, writes a lot about guided missiles and underwater torpedoes, developed with the active participation of Vladimir Zvorykin. The list of applications of inventions can be continued endlessly.
• Years of living in the USA did not alleviate the homesickness. Vladimir Zvorykin strives to go to Russia. For the management of the RCA company, Zworykin's trip to the USSR is seen as an opportunity to receive Russian orders for its products: the United States was experiencing a severe economic crisis - receiving orders for products from other countries was welcomed. Zvorykin himself dreamed of meeting his sisters and brother. A few months before his first trip to the Soviet Union, the company official visit visited by representatives Soviet Union, specialists in the field of radio electronics S.A. Vekshinsky and A.F. Shorin. In a private conversation, the famous engineer was assured that the Soviet government would “provide him with the maximum favorable conditions for work and life and guarantees protection from any persecution related to its pre-revolutionary past.” In August 1933, Zvorykin was in Russia. The report “Television using cathode tubes” in the hall of the Leningrad NTO for Electricians gathers a huge number of specialists. A year later, Zvorykin goes to Russia again. RCA enters into a solid agreement with the People's Commissariat of the Electrical Industry of the USSR in 1935, according to which Soviet state“technological documentation and materials, equipment for the production of electrovacuum devices, equipment for equipping the first Soviet electronic TV center, etc.” were supplied.
• In the USSR, Vladimir Zvorykin always received a warm welcome. “Bolsheviks,” writes V.P. Borisov, - they forgave the talented scientist everything: officer’s shoulder straps, collaboration with Kolchak, and flight to the USA...” Stalin’s USSR began industrialization: here they were purposefully interested in acquiring latest technologies, including the purchase of television equipment. Moreover, the inventor is honored with a reception from the People's Commissar of Communications of the USSR Rykov.
• The first Soviet TV “VK” was created precisely according to Zvorykin’s developments. By the end of 1936, the Leningrad Institute of Telemechanics, which by that time had been transformed into the All-Russian Research Institute of Television, completed the development of an electronic television system. On March 10, 1939, regular television broadcasts began from the Moscow Television Center on Shabolovka, and in 1954, the Kuntsevo Radio Engineering Plant in Moscow launched mass production television receivers.
• ...The famous inventor was able to visit his homeland again only in 1959. In 1945, he was actually banned from traveling abroad and was denied a passport. Until the end of the 50s, Zvorykin did not travel. One of the chapters of Albert Abramson's monograph contains detailed information about how the FBI was actively interested in Zworykin since 1943. Why from this moment? In 1943, Zvorykin, who by that time had moved with his laboratory to the most prestigious city from a scientific point of view, Princeton, was approached by activists of the Fund for Relief of War Victims in Russia, which was involved in raising funds for the purchase and sending of food and clothing to the population of the USSR, offering to head the New York branch of this fund. Fundamentally not previously affiliated with any parties or movements and not involved in any social activities Zvorykin agreed this time. The American Fund for Relief to Victims of the War in Russia, as it became known later, was one of the first on the FBI's list of suspicious organizations and was repeatedly searched at its own headquarters. At the same time, Vladimir Zvorykin in 1943 agreed to head the list of leaders of the New York Science Committee of the Council of American-Soviet Friendship.
• In 1951, after many years of bachelorhood, he married Ekaterina Polevitskaya, an emigrant from Russia. The history of their union is significant - they met twenty years before the wedding. Zvorykin was fascinated by the beauty and charm of Polevitskaya, who was married. The marriage proposal followed when Zvorykin learned that Ekaterina Polevitskaya had become a widow. And although both newlyweds had crossed the sixty-year mark by that time, they lived in love and harmony for more than thirty (!) years. His energetic and erudite wife, a doctor by profession, greatly influenced the determination of Zvorykin’s future professional interests. After retiring as director of the RCA Electronics Laboratory in 1954 at the age of 65, his scientific and inventive interests shifted primarily to the field of medical electronics.
• Zvorykin’s merits are appreciated so highly that he is awarded the position of honorary vice president of RCA. “The concept of resignation has nothing to do with Vladimir Zvorykin,” Sarnov said in his final speech at a Princeton University conference specially organized in honor of the outstanding inventor. - A scientist like Zvorykin never resigns. His talent never fades. The imagination and creative instinct of a true scientist lead him to even more extensive knowledge.” That same year, Zworykin began work as director of the Center for Medical Electronics at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. To study chemical reactions inside living cells, the talented inventor soon created a unique microscope that reproduces a color image of objects on a television screen. Further development integrated microelectronics allowed the scientist to implement the idea of ​​endoradiosounding together with doctors. The probe in this method is a miniature radio transmitter tablet, with the help of which “you can obtain data on acidity and other indicators of the internal environment.”
• Together with the outstanding mathematician J. von Neumann, Zworykin is developing a new method for forecasting weather changes using weather rockets and computer data processing. Then he takes on the problem of improving traffic safety on expressways and, as a result, creates an experimental model of a radio-controlled safe car. It is significant that in 1954, our eminent compatriot accurately predicted that a person would see the surface of the Moon and other planets precisely with the help of a television, which would be delivered there on board an interplanetary spacecraft.
• In addition to working at the Rockefeller Institute, the scientist and inventor begins teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Miami. The International Federation of Medical Electronics and Biological Technology is created, Vladimir Zvorykin is elected president of the federation.
• In 1967, the Zvorykin couple formalized an Intourist visit to Vladimir. The two of us went to admire the cathedrals. Then, having caught a taxi, we drove to the closed city of Murom. Thanks to his courage, fifty years later Vladimir Zvorykin is again in his hometown near the house where he spent his childhood and adolescence.
• Died in 1982 in the USA.

07/29/1982. Died in USA emigrant Vladimir Kuzmich Zvorykin, inventor of television

Zvorykin - the father of television

(30.7.1889–29.7.1982) - inventor of the kinescope, spent most of his life in exile in the USA, where he died. But he gave so much to humanity that today we cannot imagine life without some of the fruits of his technical thought.

He was born into the family of a rich Murom merchant, the boy was named in honor. Vladimir grew up very inquisitive, and his father tried not to fetter his son’s initiative. If he wants to go for the summer as a cabin boy on his father’s luxury yacht - please. Dreaming of a book that has just appeared on the shelves in Moscow - what's the question? He is drawn to radio electronics - for God's sake. One day, all the electrical equipment on the yacht burned out, but the father allowed his son to fix the breakdown and was very proud when he succeeded.

This small success gave Zvorykin Jr. self-confidence. He became interested in electrical engineering, and his teacher was the famous electronics specialist B.L. Rosing, who was the first to use a cathode ray tube to receive television images. Zvorykin became his best student, with whom the master held conversations about the future of television.

At first, Zvorykin decided to study physics and entered St. Petersburg University, but soon transferred to the electrical engineering department of the St. Petersburg Technical Institute, where he met Rosing. It was the professor who insisted that his talented student continue his studies in Europe. Zvorykin chose the Collège de France in Paris, however, his internship did not last long - it began. From its very first months, Vladimir, having returned to his homeland, became an officer in the wireless telegraph units.

In 1915, he was sent to the Petrograd Officer Electrical Engineering School. Here he was again lucky with a teacher - Colonel I.E. Muromtsev. In addition, he arranged for the young officer to work at the Russian Society of Wireless Telegraphs and Telephones ROBTiT, a subsidiary of the English company Marconi in Petrograd.

Anticipating skeptical judgments that all such technical inventions only contributed to the satanic influence on humanity, we will object. And on radio, and on television, on the Internet, and on the printing press, you can make it accessible to people Holy Bible and worship, but you can spread godlessness and pornography. During the preaching of Christ, it never occurred to anyone to condemn the then means of disseminating information: papyrus, writing tablets and leather scrolls. The gospel message was recorded and spread throughout the world with the help of various technical devices.

VC. Zvorykin

“A gift to the American continent” - this is what his colleague in the field of electronics said about Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin. There were certainly reasons to assign such a pompous definition to an emigrant from Russia. Zworykin invented the “miracle of the 20th century” - electronic television. His innovative ideas were also used in the creation of electron microscopes, photomultipliers and electron-optical converters, and various medical electronics devices - from miniature “radio pills” to a television reading device for the blind.

Russian engineer, one of the inventors of modern television, was born on July 18 (July 30, new style) 1889 in the city of Murom, Vladimir province.

Father, Kozma Alekseevich, a merchant of the 1st guild, traded grain, owned steamships, and was respected in the city; from 1903 he was chairman of the Murom Public Bank. Two brothers of Kozma Alekseevich became scientists: Nikolai Alekseevich, who died early, was a master of mathematics and physics, a student of A. Stoletov; Konstantin Alekseevich, professor at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, became widely known as the author of fundamental works on the theory of metal cutting and mechanical engineering technology.

While studying at the Murom Real School, V.K. From the age of 12, Zvorykin visited ships and his father’s office; I got used to being organized, controlling the arrival schedule of ships, and loved to repair electrical equipment. After graduating from a real school, he entered St. Petersburg University in 1906, but at the insistence of his father he soon transferred to the Technological Institute. Here a meeting took place that largely determined Zvorykin’s scientific interests: he met Professor B. Rosing, the author of pioneering works on electronic transmission of images over a distance. Beginning in 1910, Zvorykin led under the leadership of Rosing scientific work in his laboratory.

Subsequently, Vladimir Kozmich recalled his long conversations with B.L. Rosing, during which the possibilities of television were discussed: “At this time I fully understood the shortcomings of mechanical television and the need to use electronic systems.” After graduating with honors from the Institute of Technology in 1912, Zworykin continued his education at the College de France in Paris under the guidance of famous physicist P. Langevin.

The First World War interrupted Zworykin's scientific studies; he returned to Russia, where he was drafted into the army. For a year and a half he served in the signal troops in Grodno, then worked at an officer radio school in Petrograd.

Events February Revolution 1917 was perceived by him ambiguously. For many officers tsarist army Already the first months after February turned into a personal drama: revolutionary tribunals at that time could, based on complaints from soldiers, bring any officer or general to justice for poor treatment of lower ranks in the past. Zworykin was also summoned to such a tribunal: one of the soldiers complained that he “mocked” him, forcing him to repeat numbers into a “hole” (microphone) for a long time, while he himself was rummaging through some kind of apparatus in the next room. The court released the inventor, realizing the absurdity of the charges brought against him. However, it was hardly possible to conduct research work in Petrograd, and Zvorykin decided to return to the regular army. This time he served in the town of Brovary near Kiev.

The situation was difficult. As a delegate of his unit, Zvorykin participated in all-front rallies. One day, while returning by train, he saw officers being arrested and disarmed in neighboring carriages. Knowing the dangers of this, he jumped out of the train window as it moved, sliding safely downhill into soft bushes. The shots in pursuit did not harm him. Further service lost all meaning, and soon he, having replaced military uniform into civilian clothes, went to Moscow.

Zvorykin understood that “to expect a return to normal conditions, in particular for research work not in the near future." He did not want to participate in the civil war, and all former officers were required to report to the commissariat for conscription into the Red Army. “Moreover,” Z. recalled, “I dreamed of working in a laboratory in order to realize the ideas that I had in mind. In the end I came to the conclusion that for similar work you need to go to another country, and America seemed like such a country to me.”

Events forced us to act decisively. Having accidentally learned that an arrest warrant had already been issued for him for not appearing at the commissariat, Zvorykin left Moscow for Nizhny Novgorod. Familiar employees of the office of the former shipping company "K.A. Zvorykin" helped with money in exchange for preserved jewelry. Zvorykin decided to get to Omsk at all costs, where shortly before he was offered a job equipping a radio station on a business trip to the USA. WITH with great difficulty he managed to get to Yekaterinburg; where he was arrested and put in prison to determine his identity. It is unknown how his fate would have been decided if Czechoslovak units had not entered the city, after which the prison guards fled.

The Russian engineer did not arouse suspicion among the Czechs, and he was released. In Omsk, which was the capital of independent Siberia, the young radio specialist was greeted cordially: he was given the necessary papers for a business trip to the United States. However, it turned out to be almost impossible to travel to America: all roads from Omsk, except to the north, were cut off. In this situation, Zvorykin decided to go by steamer along the Irtysh and Ob rivers, across the Kara Sea to the island of Vaigach. The voyage took more than a month. At the end of it, Zvorykin ended up on a small island in the Kara Gate Strait. It was possible to get out of here only by icebreaker. Fortunately, the icebreaker arrived, and a few weeks later Zvorykin reached Arkhangelsk, occupied by Entente troops. Further difficulties were associated mainly with obtaining visas, after which Zvorykin set off across new seas and oceans. Having made stops along the way in Norway, Denmark and England, he reached the United States on the eve of 1919. However, the inventor felt bound by obligations with the Siberian government. Therefore, in the same 1919, he returned to Omsk through the Pacific Ocean, Japan, Vladivostok and Harbin. Having reported on previous orders and received a lot of new ones, Zworykin again went to America, this time for good.

At first, the Russian ambassador B. Bakhmetyev helped him settle in New York. It was not easy to get a job in a research laboratory. Finally, Zvorykin was given the opportunity to try his hand at Westinghouse Electric in Pittsburgh. Plunging headlong into experiments, he set about implementing the long-nurtured ideas of electronic television, and by 1923 he managed to create a television device, the basis of which was an original transmitting tube with a mosaic photocathode. The capabilities of the developed equipment were, however, still very limited. The demonstration of the device did not make much of an impression on the company’s management; as a result, Zvorykin received instructions to “do something more useful.” His innovative application was also met with distrust at the US Patent Office. Only 15 years after registering the application, as a result of an appeal to the so-called “Court of Conscience,” Zvorykin managed to obtain a patent.

While developing devices for practical application, Zvorykin did not abandon his “television ideas”. He created devices (photocells, sound recording systems) that were used in television. Gradually moving towards his intended goal, by 1929 he designed a high-vacuum receiving tube - a kinescope, and developed a number of other elements for electronic television equipment. Zvorykin’s fundamental invention, which made it possible to solve the main problem in the development of television technology, was the creation of a transmitting cathode ray tube with charge accumulation and high photosensitivity. By the beginning of the 30s. In many countries, including England, France, Germany, and the USSR, work was carried out to improve photocathodes and create transmission tubes suitable for television transmission. The difficulty was explained by the fact that when the transmitted image is scanned, the light impact of each of its elements on the photosensitive layer occurs within only millionths of a second. The photocurrent excited in this case turns out to be extremely small; its amplification seemed difficult to implement technically. Having set out to find a way to accumulate the charge of point photocells, Z. received a special cathode ray tube in 1931 - an iconoscope. After successful tests of the iconoscope, Z., together with his assistants, began to develop the television system as a whole. In 1933, a television system with 240 lines was created, in 1934 - 343 lines with interlaced scanning. In 1936, television broadcasts using such a system began in the United States.

In 1933, Zvorykin’s laboratory in the USA was visited by envoys from Russia, specialists in the field of radio electronics - S. Vekshinsky and A. Shorin. In the same year, Zvorykin made a visit to the USSR and gave a detailed report on his work at the Moscow House of Scientists. A year later, he returned to his homeland again and became acquainted with the work of a number of laboratories in Leningrad and Moscow. The contacts turned out to be mutually enriching: Zvorykin’s great interest was aroused by the work of L. Kubetsky, the inventor of the multistage photomultiplier. Upon returning to the USA, Zworykin developed a similar device in his company. An important result of the meetings in which Zvorykin participated was the conclusion in 1935 of an agreement between the company Radio Corp. of America (RCA) and the People's Commissariat of the Electrical Industry. The implementation of the agreement played a positive role in the development of domestic radio electronics.

Having received recognition throughout the world as the author of fundamental inventions in the field of electronic television, Zvorykin made a significant contribution to the development of other areas of technology: in the late 30s - early 40s. he carried out a series of works on the creation of electron microscopes; his laboratory also developed a supericonoscope, an orthicon, a vidicon, and electron-optical converters. IN post-war years The range of Zvorykin's inventive thought expanded even more. Among his developments are a computer method for weather prediction using radiosonde rockets, an electronic traffic control system, etc. His work in the field of medical electronics turned out to be especially fruitful during these years; he created a television reading device for the blind.

After resigning in 1954 from his position as head of the RCA laboratory, Zvorykin began active organizational and scientific activities. He was director of the Center for Medical Electronics at the Rockefeller Institute, founding president of the International Federation of Medical Electronics and Biological Engineering, and a member of professional medical electronics groups established in the United States and France. Drawing attention to the disunity of technology, medicine and biology, Zworykin spoke in print against the excessive specialization of professional groups and societies, proposing rational forms for carrying out technical developments for medicine. With the same passion, he continued to invent: his ideas were used in the development of the endoradiosounding method ("radio pills") and the creation of computer information retrieval systems for medicine.

Zvorykin owns over 120 scientific patents. His name is listed in the American National Gallery of Fame for Inventors, he has been awarded more than thirty awards, including the US National Medal of Science, the Pioneer Award of the American Association of Manufacturers, the Order of the Legion of Honor of France, the Order of Honor of the Italian government, etc. His life was full of trips to many countries, meetings with scientists, engineers, public figures. Since 1959, he came to his homeland eight more times, visited loved ones, and was interested in the development of science, technology, and culture in our country. He lamented that he could not visit Murom, where he spent his childhood and teenage years(the city was closed to foreigners). Then, with his characteristic entrepreneurial spirit, he solved this problem.

In 1967, the Zvorykin couple formalized an Intourist visit to the city of Vladimir. There the two of us went to see the cathedrals, and then, catching a taxi, headed to Murom. And now, after fifty years of separation, Vladimir Kozmich is again in his hometown - at the Church of St. Nicholas Naberezhny over Oka, in the cemetery where relatives are buried, in the house where he spent his childhood and adolescence.

Zvorykin loved to tell guests who visited his Princeton home about this risky trip. His face became animated and a mischievous sparkle appeared in his eyes. The old gatekeeper, the Negro Lynn, brought vodka, mushrooms and herring. The guests laughed; they were not at all bothered by the host’s strong Russian accent, which he never got rid of during his sixty years of living in America.

Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin died on July 29, 1982 in Princeton, New Jersey, USA, one day short of his 93rd birthday.

Used articles by V.P. Borisova about V.K. Zvorykin

G.V. Kuznetsov

“This is how TV journalists work”

In 1999, at the international television forum, first place in the “Teleportrait” category was won by the series of films “ Hidden people" One of the films tells how Professor Boris Rosing, a handsome, noble, talented man, died in Arkhangelsk.

He was arrested “for financial support of the counter-revolution” - he gave money to an acquaintance who was accused of some seditious statements.

And so in April 1933, while in exile in Arkhangelsk, Rosing was riding on a tram, holding a pot of rationed thin soup. The tram rocked and soup spilled on a lady's coat. She raised a cry. “Don’t shout, I’ll arrange everything,” the scientist asked. The lady did not let up. Rosing suffered a stroke - or, as they wrote then, a cerebral hemorrhage.

We need to know more about this person. If you ask young journalists who invented television, the answer is either silence, or, in the most recent years, the name of Zvorykin, the “Russian American”, whom Bulat Okudzhava, along with the writer Vladimir Nabokov, honored with his poem:

How good it is that Zworykin left and invented television there! If he had not left the country, He, like everyone else, would have ascended to Golgotha.

When journalists dubbed Zvorykin “the father of television,” he exclaimed: “I invented the kinescope and I don’t lay claim to anything else!” The invention of television, according to Zworykin, “is an endless staircase created by dozens of hands.” In addition to the kinescope (the main unit of a modern TV), Zworykin was responsible for the development of the iconoscope, i.e. main camera unit. The message that the electronic television scheme has been created, that 10 years of work has been completed, V.K. Zvorykin made this in 1933 at the meeting of the Society of Radio Engineers in Chicago. And already in the fall of this year he was invited to visit the USSR, where he went not without fear, although he received assurances that his “White Guard past” would not become an obstacle in business negotiations.

However, this past prevented our country from recognizing publicly, in mass popular publications, the merits of the great inventor. In these books there was just a “ladder of names”, and it was opened by Boris Lvovich Rosing, a professor at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, and, of course, it was not mentioned that Rosing was arrested and died in the same year when his best student Zvorykin was accepted with honor into the Leningrad and Moscow. Our literature proudly notes that in 1949 the Moscow television center was re-equipped with “new, domestic equipment.” What kind of equipment was working there from March 25, 1938 (on that day they showed the film “The Great Citizen”, justifying the repressions against the old Bolsheviks) - our history was silent. Meanwhile, the launch of the television center on Shabolovka was a direct consequence of Zvorykin’s visit to the USSR. The equipment was supplied by a major company RCA (Radio Corporation of America), where Vladimir Kozmich Zworykin worked under the guidance of his fellow countryman, also a native of Russia, David Abramovich Sarnov. If Zworykin, like his teacher Rosing, invented “just” a technical means of vision at a distance, then Sarnov immediately understood the commercial possibilities of the new product (he had previously published a memorandum on mass radio - after all, A.S. Popov also did not invent a means mass media, but a means of communication).

Sarnov's parents brought him to the United States in 1900. America started talking about him in 1912, when 21-year-old radio operator Sarnov received signals from the Titanic in distress, and then for three days without a break he received and recorded the names of surviving passengers transmitted by ships -rescuers. In 1916 he writes: “A plan is needed that will make the radio a household appliance, like a piano or a phonograph... This plan would especially interest farmers and residents of remote areas. By purchasing a music radio box, they could enjoy concerts, lectures, poetry readings, etc.”

The names of Zvorykin and Sarnov were first mentioned in our post-war mass press by Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist Yaroslav Golovanov. He described a meeting with 85-year-old RCA honorary vice president Zworykin, mentioning that he “emigrated to the United States at the end of the First World War.” In fact, it was impossible to write that Zvorykin came to America in 1919 with the documents of the plenipotentiary representative of the Siberian government, Kolchak.

We know sadly little about this extraordinary man, whose life resembles a fascinating detective novel. In the USA there were created about him documentaries, and only recently in the city of Murom, on the Oka River, did a Memorial plaque on the house where Vladimir Kozmich was born. His father owned a shipping company, and the house is now a historical and art museum. It is interesting that Zvorykin managed to visit here in 1967, despite the fact that Murom was closed to foreigners. Having issued an Intourist permit to Vladimir, he broke away from the group, took a taxi and drove off to his small homeland. I bowed to the ashes of my ancestors in the cemetery, stood on the banks of the Oka, went into parents' house. “The scientist later happily told guests at his Princeton home about this adventurous trip. The old gatekeeper, the Negro Lynn, brought vodka, mushrooms and herring, the guests laughed, they were not at all bothered by the owner’s strong Russian accent, which he never got rid of during his sixty years of living in America,” the memoirist wrote.

In 1906, Zworykin entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology and, after a brief infatuation with politics, disillusioned with the demagogue leaders, devoted himself entirely to work in the laboratory of Professor Rosing. “Our relationship soon grew into friendship,” recalls Zvorykin, “and I discovered that he was not only a talented scientist, but also a versatile educated person. During our collaboration he did not try to use me only as an assistant, but in every possible way expanded my knowledge in the field of physics. Rosing was essentially ahead of his time... To obtain the required vacuum it was necessary to spend a huge amount of time. The pumps we had were manual, and we often had to spend hours lifting and lowering heavy vessels with mercury in order for the degree of vacuum to reach the desired level... And yet, by the end of our joint work, Professor Rosing received current system, which reproduced a vague picture on the screen."

Other eyewitnesses, however, wrote about the “clear” picture, in particular, about the image of “a grating in transmitted light, placed in front of the transmitter lens.” This image of the grid can be called a gloomy prophecy of the fate of a genius in Soviet Russia.

Here are Zvorykin’s impressions of Leningrad dating back to 1933 (omitting the sad lines about the difficulties of life of the townspeople): “The program of the visit turned out to be thoughtful, it contained many lectures, several visits to laboratories and official dinners. I discovered that I was a guest of the radio industry and therefore of the government, and not of the university, as I had assumed... Of course, I asked about Professor Rosing. Most of the people I asked had never heard of him. Finally they told me that he was arrested during the revolution, exiled to Arkhangelsk and soon died.”

In fact, Rosing, as already mentioned, was arrested in 1931, having managed to publish several works on television technology.

One copy of Rosing's book "Electric Telescopy" fell into the hands of another talented person, laboratory assistant at the Central Asian University Boris Pavlovich Grabovsky, who decided to implement the idea of ​​​​electronic television - and immediately! And he presented the improved “radio telephony” project to Rosing himself in Leningrad. With Rosing's help, orders were placed for electric vacuum equipment, which made it possible to test Grabovsky's system in 1928 on the basis of the tram trust in Tashkent. But at that time, the minds of the Moscow authorities were dominated not by electronic, but by mechanical television - albeit low-line, with a screen no larger than a matchbox, but “long-range”, accessible to “proletarians of all countries.” Radio amateurs of the USSR received precisely such broadcasts from abroad. Disappointment will come later - then they will invite Zvorykin to the Union, ignoring their craftsmen.

Somewhat earlier, a television installation was built in Leningrad by V.A. Gurov (in the laboratory of the Comintern plant) - it was disabled as a result of the flood of 1924. An employee of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology, Lev Sergeevich Termen, was also involved in television. The magazine "Ogonyok" in its issue dated November 21, 1926 cited the opinion of Academician A.F. Ioffe: “The discovery of L. S. Theremin is enormous and of pan-European scope. We saw the movement of a human hand on the screen." Then they showed a hammer, a clown and other objects. Theremin's traces were lost for a while in the wilds of the intelligence services (he worked in a residency in the USA), and in the late 1950s he emerged as a pop artist, a performer on the “theremin” - an instrument that changes the tone of the sound by moving the hand near the antenna.

Rosing, Termen, Gurov, apparently, worked in the very laboratories through which the honored guest from the United States, Zvorykin, was taken. He recalls them this way: “Several laboratories that I visited did not make an impression on me. They were located, as a rule, in old buildings and were poorly equipped, sharply different from the new, well-equipped laboratories in the United States. However, I saw many original experiments with results that were new to me.”

Apparently, Zvorykin’s memoirs summarized his impressions from two visits to the USSR - he visited us in 1933 and 1934. After the first visit, the “Zvorykin problem” was ordered to be solved by the entire sector of the Institute of Telemechanics, headed by Ya.A. Ryftin, who simultaneously headed the television department at the Military Electrotechnical Academy in Leningrad. “Komsomolskaya Pravda” in its issue of March 14, 1935 wrote this: “In August 1933, at the invitation of the Soviet government, the famous American inventor television dr Zvorykin came to the USSR and gave a number of lectures about his invention at Moscow and Leningrad institutes. About the essence of the invention and its technical details dr. Zworykin said nothing. At the Leningrad Institute of Telemechanics there is nothing but appearance there was no kinescope. In 1934, Dr. Zvorykin came to the USSR again. He was amazed by what he found in the laboratories of the Leningrad Institute of Telemechanics: - For the first time I came to acquaint you with my achievements. This is the second time I'm leaving as a colleague. I’m afraid that for the third time I will have to learn a lot from you,” said Doctor Zvorykin before leaving.”

The Leningrad television center was built on the basis of domestic equipment and went on air a little later than the Moscow one - on July 7, 1938. The image clarity was 240 lines (in Moscow, the “Zvorykin” equipment gave 343 lines, post-war - from 1949 to the present day - 625 lines) . Moscow broadcasts had a slightly larger distribution radius thanks to the use of the Shukhov radio tower on Shabolovka, 148 m high. This tower began to be built in 1919 by order of V.I. Lenin “to ensure reliable and constant communication between the center of the republic and Western states and outskirts." Soviet republic in the ring of fronts, but a hundred skilled builders are diverted to this “archivally important” matter and receive Red Army rations, working in both cold and heat in the hope that radio waves will contribute to the world revolution. Until the 40s, the most powerful radio stations in the USSR were called “named after the Comintern” - i.e. world communist government. Regarding television, the plans were similar. In 1925, in the Pravda newspaper on July 16, the founder of our documentary cinema, Dziga Vertov (D.L. Kaufman), wrote: “In the near future, a person will be able to simultaneously transmit visual and auditory phenomena recorded by a radio film camera via radio to the whole world. We must prepare to turn these inventions of the capitalist world to its own destruction.”

But life decreed otherwise, and at the Moscow television center on Shabolovka the creative efforts of two Russian geniuses, who found themselves on opposite sides of the class barricades, united: Vladimir Kozmich Zvorykin and Vladimir Grigorievich Shukhov. Initially, Shukhov proposed a project for a tower 350 m high (higher than the Eiffel), but in the years civil war there was no metal for such a tower, and they limited themselves, essentially, to the upper “half”, which, nevertheless, amazes with its elegance and serves as a symbol domestic television for many years.

Let us finally turn to the most delicate side of Zvorykin’s biography, to the reasons for silencing his name in our press during the post-war decades. Although in 1956 a purely technical book by Zvorykin and his co-author was published (his technical ideas were too important to keep silent about them), the opposition continued in the ordinary mind: Shukhov and Rosing are patriots, Zvorykin betrayed the Motherland, and he also served Kolchak. In fact, Vladimir Kozmich was not an enemy Soviet power, he just wanted to study technology, not politics. The authorities, one might say, forced him to emigrate. This is how it happened - according to Zvorykin’s memoirs, written in English and not intended for publication in Russia.

Zvorykin broke up with Rosing shortly after the famous display of the bars on television. The institute's diploma was received, and practice was to take place in laboratories in Europe. And in 1912, the transmission of radio signals from Eiffel Tower, and Zworykin experimented with different types of receivers. Then there were holidays in Spain and continuation of work - already in Germany, which seemed to Zvorykin more thorough in a technical sense. But war broke out. Through Denmark and Finland, Zvorykin reached his homeland, where he was immediately mobilized into the army with the rank of private. In the area of ​​the city of Grodno, a private with an engineer's badge became interested in the command and was appointed commander of a radio station - it was disassembled somewhere in the railway warehouses.

It was possible not only to assemble the station, but also to establish “radio interception” - listening to German official messages. In 1917, in approximately the same way, Zvorykin opened a radio station for the Provisional Government, he was helped by a driver named Lushin. A year later, the same driver saved Zvorykin from execution. While working in the police, he learned that Zvorykin was included in the list as a white officer who did not show up for registration, and, waiting for Vladimir Kozmich to return from work, from the Marconi radio factory, which moved after the Soviet government to Moscow, Lushin literally dragged him into the car and drove him the station. IN Nizhny Novgorod Zvorykin was rescued by employees of the shipping company owned by his father - apparently, they respected the former “exploiter”.

He reached Perm by boat, then ended up in Yekaterinburg, where he was arrested. The rebel Czechs were approaching the city, the tsar who was nearby was shot along with his family, and Zvorykin and his cellmates broke down the doors and fled - because the guards and investigators fled even earlier. Together with the White Czechs, Zvorykin arrived in Omsk.

The Siberian anti-Soviet government sent him to the USA to get radio equipment. After a month-long voyage on a steamer down the Ob, further to a radio station operating in the Novaya Zemlya area to report on ice conditions, Zvorykin reached Arkhangelsk on an icebreaker, already occupied by Entente troops. From revolutionary Russia he found himself in another world: Copenhagen, London and, Finally, New York. But Zvorykin’s ideas about honor were such that he carried out the assignment, obtained the necessary equipment and completed his first trip around the world along the route Seattle - Yokohama - Vladivostok - Omsk. As chaos in Russia grew ever greater, he decided to return to the United States, this time for good. Admiral Kolchak hoped that Zvorykin would arrange a regular supply of radio equipment - and Vladimir Kozmich went to the United States as an authorized representative of the Kolchak government. He barely had time to see the Statue of Liberty before this government fell.

When the famous American Zworykin was received in the USSR in 1933, the trip program included a lot of interesting things. In Georgia he was kindly received by A.P. Beria and even provided him with his plane to fly to the sea, to Sukhumi. And in Moscow, at the play “Days of the Turbins” at the Art Theater, in the man sitting next to him in the first row of the stalls, Zvorykin recognized with horror... the investigator who had once interrogated him in the Yekaterinburg prison. “The Leader of All Times and Peoples” was a master at such jokes. Perhaps he himself was present at that performance - from the archives of the Moscow Art Theater it is known that Stalin watched “Days of the Turbins” many times.

All that remains is to repeat after Bulat Okudzhava: “It’s so good that Zvorykin left and invented television there...”.

Another Russian inventor turned out to be the founder of the famous, world's first company in the United States, which produced video recorders in 1956. The company is called Ampex. The first three letters are initials: A.M. Witness. "Ex" - excellent, brilliant.

So, it turns out that Russia is the birthplace of television. We have something to be proud of. Let us remember our fellow countrymen. In 1978, Zvorykin’s name was included as No. 1 in the Book of Russian-American Glory.

Literature:

Kutsenko I.Ya. B. L. Rosing - discoverer of electronic television, founder of the Kuban Polytechnic Institute. Maykop: OJSC “Poligraphizdat “Adygea”, 2007, - 260 p., with ill.