Timeline of Russian innovation

This timeline of Russian innovation encompasses key events in the history of technology in Russia.

The entries in this timeline fall into the following categories:

indigenous invention, like airliners, AC transformers, radio receivers, television, MRLs , artificial satellites, ICBMs uniquely Russian products, objects and events, like Saint Basil's Cathedral, Matryoshka dolls, Russian vodka products and objects with superlative characteristics, like the Tsar Bomba, the AK-47, and the Typhoon-class submarine scientific and medical discoveries, like the periodic law, vitamins and stem cells

This timeline includes scientific and medical discoveries, products and technologies introduced by various peoples of Russia and its predecessor states, regardless of ethnicity, and also lists inventions by naturalized immigrant citizens. Certain innovations achieved internationally may also appear in this timeline in cases where the Russian side played a major role in such projects.

Kievan Rus'

10th century

Kokoshnik The kokoshnik is a traditional Russian head-dress for women. It is patterned to match the style of the sarafan and can be pointed or round. It is tied at the back of the head with long thick ribbons in a large bow. The forehead is sometimes decorated with pearls or other jewelry. The word kokoshnik appeared in the 16th century, however the earliest head-dress pieces of a similar type were found in the 10th to 12th century burials in Veliky Novgorod. It was worn by girls and women on special occasions until the Russian Revolution, and was subsequently introduced into Western fashion by Russian émigrés. Kvass / Okroshka Kvass or kvas, sometimes called in English a "bread drink", is a fermented beverage made from black rye or rye bread, which contributes to its light or dark colour. By the content of alcohol resulted from fermentation, it is classified as non-alcoholic: up to 1.2% of alcohol, which is so low that it is considered acceptable for consumption by children. While the early low-alcoholic prototypes of kvass were known in some ancient civilizations, its modern, almost non-alcoholic form originated in Eastern Europe. Kvass was first mentioned in the Russian Primary Chronicle, which tells how Prince Vladimir the Great gave kvass among other beverages to the people, while celebrating the Christianization of Kievan Rus'. Kvass is also known as a main ingredient in okroshka, a Russian cold soup.The history of kvas at kvas.ru site Multidomed church The multidomed church is a typical form of Russian church architecture, which distinguishes Russia from other Eastern Orthodox nations and Christian denominations. Indeed, the earliest Russian churches built just after the Christianization of Kievan Rus', were multi-domed, which led some historians to speculate what Russian pre-Christian pagan temples might have looked like. Namely, these early churches were 13-domed wooden Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod (989) and 25-domed stone Desyatinnaya Church in Kiev (989–996). The number of domes typically has a symbolical meaning in Russian architecture, for example 13 domes symbolize Christ with 12 Apostles, while 25 domes mean the same with additional 12 Prophets from the Old Testament. Multiple domes of Russian churches were often made of wood and were comparatively smaller than the Byzantine domes.Russian Church Design by Lisa Kies. at Sky Palace world architecture site. Kissel Kissel or kisel is a dessert that consists of sweetened juice, typically that of berries, thickened with oats, cornstarch or potato starch, with red wine or dried fruits added sometimes. The dessert can be served either hot or cold, and if made using less thickening starch it can be consumed as a beverage, which is common in Russia. Kissel was mentioned for the first time in the Primary Chronicle, where it forms part of the story of how a besieged Russian city was saved from nomadic Pechenegs.Kissels at supercook.ru

11th century

Birch bark document A birch bark document is a document written on pieces of birch bark. This form of writing material was developed independently by several ancient cultures. In Rus' the usage of the specially prepared birch bark as a cheap replacement for pergament or paper became widespread soon after the Christianization of the country. The earliest Russian birch bark documents (likely written in the first quarter of the 11th century) have been found in Veliky Novgorod. In total, more than 1000 such documents have been discovered, most of them in Novgorod and the rest in other ancient cities in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Many birch bark documents were written by common people rather than by clergy or nobility. This fact led some historians to suggest that before the Mongol invasion of Rus' the level of literacy in the country might have been considerably higher than in contemporary Western Europe. Koch / Icebreaker The koch was an ancient form of icebreaker, being a special type of one or two small wooden sailing ships with a mast, used for voyages in the icy conditions of the Arctic seas and Siberian rivers. The koch was developed by the Russian Pomors in the 11th century, when they started settling on the White Sea shores. The koch's hull was protected by a belt of ice-floe resistant flush skin-planking (made of oak or larch) along the variable water-line, and had a false keel for on-ice portage. If a koch was in danger of being trapped in the ice-fields, its rounded bodylines below the surface would allow for the ship to be pushed up out of the water and onto the ice with no damage. In the 19th century similar protective features were adopted to modern icebreakers.Navigation in ice conditions. Experience of Russian sailors by Nataly Marchenko at ris.npolar.no (Svalbard Science Forum) Gudok The gudok is an ancient East Slavic string musical instrument, played with a bow. It usually had three strings, two of them tuned in unison and played as a drone, the third tuned a fifth higher. All three strings were in the same plane at the bridge, so that a bow could make them all sound at the same time. Sometimes the gudok also had several sympathetic strings (up to eight) under the sounding board. These made the gudok's sound warm and rich. It was also possible to play while standing or dancing, which made it popular among skomorokhs. The name gudok comes from the 17th century, however the same type of instrument existed from 11th to 16th century, but was called smyk.String instruments at the site Russian musical instruments. Medovukha Medovukha is an old Slavic honey-based alcoholic beverage very similar to mead, but much cheaper and faster to make. Since the old times the Slavs exported the fermented mead as a luxury product to Europe in huge quantities. Fermentation occurs naturally over 15 to 50 years, originally rendering the product very expensive and only accessible to the nobility. However, in the 11th century East Slavs found that fermentation occurred much faster when the honey mixture was heated, enabling medovukha to become a commonly available drink in the territory of Rus'. In the 14th century, the invention of distillation made it possible to create a prototype of the modern medovukha, however vodka was invented at the same time and gradually surpassed medovukha in popularity.Medovukha at the site Culinary Edem

1048 Russian fist fighting Russian fist fighting is an ancient Russian combat sport, similar to modern boxing. However, it features some indigenous techniques and often fought in collective events called Stenka na Stenku ("Wall against Wall"). It has existed since the times of Kievan Rus', first mentioned in the Primary Chronicle in the year 1048. The government and the Russian Orthodox Church often tried to prohibit the fights; however, fist fighting remained popular until the 19th century, while in the 20th century some of the old techniques were adopted for the modern Russian martial arts.Russian fist fighting at the site Russian Civilization

12th century

Pernach The pernach is a type of flanged mace developed since the 12th century in the region of Kievan Rus' and later widely used throughout Europe. The name comes from the Russian word перо (pero) meaning feather, reflecting the form of pernach that resembled an arrow with fletching. The most popular variety of pernach had six flanges and was called shestopyor (from Russian shest and pero, that is six-feathered). Pernach was the first form of the flanged mace to find wide usage. It was perfectly suited to defeat plate armour and plate mail. In later times it was often used as a symbol of power by military leaders in Eastern Europe.Medieval flanged maces by Shawn M. Caza. Shashka The shashka is a special kind of sabre, a very sharp, single-edged, single-handed, and guardless sword. In appearance, the shashka is midway between a full sabre and a straight sword. It has a slightly curved blade, and could be effective for both slashing and thrusting. Originally the shashka was developed in the 12th century by Circassians in the Northern Caucasus. These lands were integrated into the Russian Empire in the 18th century. By that time shashka was adopted as their main cold weapon by Russian Cossacks. at the site www.adigeya.com Treshchotka The treshchotka, sometimes referred in plural as treshchotki, is a Russian folk music idiophone instrument which is used to imitate hand clapping. Basically it is a set of small boards on a string that get clapped together as a group. There are no known documents confirming the usage of the treshchotka in ancient Russia, however, the remnants of what might have been the earliest 12th-century treshchotka were recently found in Novgorod. 1149 bear spear The bear spear or rogatina was a medieval type of spear used in bear hunting and also to hunt other large animals, like wisents and war horses. The sharpened head of a bear spear was enlarged and usually had the form of a bay leaf. Right under the head there was a short crosspiece that helped to fix the spear in the body of an animal. Often it was placed against the ground on its rear point, which made it easier to absorb the impact of the attacking beast. The Russian chronicles first mention rogatina as a military weapon in the year 1149, and as a hunting weapon in the year 1255.Кирпичников А. Н., «Древнерусское оружие», 1971 / Kirpichnikov A.N. The Ancient Russian weapons, 1971.

13th century Sokha The sokha is a light wooden plough which could be pulled by one horse. Its origin was in northern Russia, most likely in the Novgorod Republic, where it was used as early as in the 13th century. A characteristic feature of sokha construction is the bifurcated plowing tip (рассоха), so that a sokha has two plowshares, later made of metal, which cut the soil. The sokha is an evolution of a scratch-plough by an addition of a spade-like detail which turns the cut soil over (in regular ploughs the curved mouldboard both cuts and turns the soil).The study of the history of ancient ploughs of the Novgorod land by V. Ya. Konetsky. Pelmeni Pelmeni is a dish originating from Siberia, now considered part of Russian national cuisine. It is a type of dumpling consisting of a filling that is wrapped in thin unleavened dough. The word pelmeni comes from the Finno-Ugric Komi, Udmurt, and Mansi languages. It is unclear when pelmeni entered the cuisines of indigenous Siberian people and when it first appeared in Russian cuisine, but most likely it was during the Mongol conquests and Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus' in the 13th century, when Mongol-Tatars took the basic idea from the Chinese dumplings and brought it to Siberia and Eastern Europe.Pelmeni. A Tasty History by Josh Wilson at The School of Russian and Asian Studies site. Onion dome