Semyon Badaev, a brilliant self-taught individual, developed a new method for steel production, and his surgical instruments were highly praised by none other than Nikolai Pirogov. Unfortunately, little is known about his childhood. He was born in 1778 in the village of Verkhi, now located in the Bryansk region. At an early age, the serf boy was sent as an apprentice to a local factory, where he likely acquired his first professional skills. Later, he found himself at the Koltov Steel Factory near St. Petersburg.

At that time, Russia was forced to purchase steel from England, as no domestic enterprise could produce metal of such quality. It was then that Semyon Badaev proposed to the factory director to conduct an experiment, assuring him that he could produce high-class steel. They used a furnace with two chambers: in the first, iron was saturated with carbon to increase hardness and wear resistance, and in the second, it was melted to obtain steel. The result exceeded expectations. Starting in 1810, Russia began producing stamped steel necessary for complex tools. Impressed by Badaev's success, the government bought him out of serfdom and tasked him with establishing the production of surgical instruments.

Semyon Ivanovich continued his experiments at the Votkinsk Factory under the guidance of Ilya Tchaikovsky, the father of the famous composer. At that time, platinum mining was just beginning in the Urals, and Badaev decided to study its properties. He conducted a series of experiments, alloying platinum with steel, and obtained an extremely strong material.

In 1840, Tchaikovsky tasked Badaev with presenting the instruments at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. There, scalpels and lancets received high praise from the outstanding surgeon Nikolai Pirogov: "these items cut very well and were durable, showing no signs of wear." Until the end of his life, Semyon Badaev worked on improving the production of cast steel. On the day of his funeral, September 21, 1847, in memory of him, a piece of high-class cast steel was placed in his coffin.