He was a man of many talents. He began his career as an army artist during the war in the Caucasus and later became a photographer at the Imperial court. He took most of the photographs of Alexander II. In 1854, this outstanding individual developed a method for creating stereoscopic images. In the evenings, after returning from work, he often spent time in his shed, where he drew, sawed, assembled, and disassembled complex mechanisms.

As a result of his inventive activities, he created the world's first torpedo and submarine. Who was he? An ordinary provincial from Mitava, Ivan Fyodorovich Alexandrovsky. Now let’s tell everything in detail.

His paintings dedicated to the conquest of the Caucasus caused a real sensation in St. Petersburg, and even Bryullov took him as a student. However, Alexandrovsky soon grew tired of sitting behind the canvas and decided to try his hand in a new field, photography. His photo studio became so successful that he was invited to shoot for the Imperial House of the Romanovs. But he surprised the tsar and the court not only with this.

In 1858, Alexandrovsky invented a mini-submarine, a small underwater device equipped with two mines connected to each other. The boat was supposed to approach the enemy ship unnoticed and attach the mines with magnets. It would then retreat to a safe distance, and the mines would explode via an electric discharge through a wire. By 1865, he created a larger submarine with a crew of 23 people. Alexander II attended the trials and highly appreciated the invention: "Extremely cleverly conceived." In 1877, Alexandrovsky developed diving equipment powered by compressed air, named the "Underwater Tarantas." This device allowed divers to stay underwater for almost three hours, transporting a cart with cylinders and explosives. Alexandrovsky's contributions had a significant impact on the development of both domestic and global submarine shipbuilding.