LE FER DE PALLAS

one can see, from a boat and with the help of binoculars, a memorial to the discovery of "Pallaçovo gélézo" (the Pallas iron). In October 1771, the great Russian explorer of Siberia, Peter Pallas, of German origin (1741-1811) arrived in Krasnoyarsk. He ordered his collection, all his travel diaries and completed them with archival material. In 1772, a convoy of a few trolleys loaded with collections ores, animals and birds headed from Krasnoyarsk to St. Petersburg. The convoy consisted of solid sleds with a metal block with a weight of 700 kg. This block, on the rough surface covered with a thin crust, and with the form of giant egg, was a gift from the blacksmith Jacov Medvédev, who found it on the dividing line of the waters of the rivers Oubey and Sicime, tributaries rights of the Yenisey. The blacksmith, who had transported him to his yard, attacked him with his entire heart without succeeding in forging it. For 22 years, the mysterious bloc remained in the yard. P. Pallas heard about and sent a man to buy it. But the blacksmith gave the block free and even built special sleds to move it to the capital. The enigmatic object received the name of the "Pallas iron" and its mystery was decrypted in 1794 by the Czech scientist, Ernst Chladni, who said it was a meteorite, the first found and studied in Russia. The peasant blacksmith J. Medvédev was decorated by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and his discovery is now visible at the Cabinet Cabinet in Saint Petersburg.