Chaev Sergey Nikolaevich

(1863 –1944)

Railway engineer, inventor.

In 1890 he graduated from the Institute of Railway Engineering named after Emperor Alexander I.

After graduation, Chaev was assigned to the Ministry of Railways. The tradesman profession was very prestigious at that time, and truly talented people fell into this sphere. At the beginning of the 20th century, Chaev became director of the Railway Branch Society, while he combined management activities with engineering: he was, for example, one of the authors of the Bakhchisarai-Yalta electrified line in Crimea (the project was not implemented due to the outbreak of World War I). In 1913 he took the post of comrade (deputy) Minister of Communications.

Chaev became rich on the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, but he spent his high incomes not only on the construction of original mansions for himself and his wife, but also for charity. He annually allocated large sums to support orphans, for which he was elected in 1912 as an honorary member of the Petrograd Council of Orphanages. Chaev was one of the largest contributors to the expedition of G.Ya. Sedov.

After the revolution, Chaev headed the Ministry of Railways in the government of A.I. Denikin. They developed the project of a rokadnaya railway line from the Chongar peninsula to Perekop.

At the end of 1920, Chaev emigrated to France, lived in Medon, worked as an engineer in the Anon Tractor company, and was a member of the board of the Association of Russian Railway Engineers. In emigration, he developed and patented a new building material, Solomit, made from wide plates of strongly pressed straw, fastened with wire reinforcement. "Solomit" was used by him in the construction of an Orthodox church of the Resurrection of Christ in Meudon, which was founded in 1928. This large temple was built exclusively on the means of Chaeva. Hierarchs of the church ranked him for this among prominent foreign religious figures. Subsequently, this emigrant clay temple was dismantled, but restored in the 1980s.

He died in Meudon, buried in the New Cemetery.

Gulf and glacier on the west coast of the northern island of Novaya Zemlya to the north of the Russian Harbor Bay. Named in 1913 by G.Ya. Sedov.