Agustin de Betancourt: organizer and the first Rector of

the Institute of the Transport Engineers Corps

  Agustin-José Pedro del Carmen Domingo de Candelaria de Betancourt y Molina (1758-1824), of an ancient Spanish stock, was born in Canary Islands and got a nice home-based primary education. Agustin de Betancourt who studied at higher educational institutions in Madrid and Paris and revealed his gift as an inventor became the leading mechanical engineer of Spain, Director of Royal Cabinet of Machinery, founder of the School of Roads, Canals and Bridges in Madrid (1802).

  The Betancourt’s creative nature combined talents of a scholar and an engineer, an inventor and an artist. Together with José Lanz, he published Essai sur la composition des machines, the paper that served for the instruction of all European engineers for half a century, created a number of gears and machines, implemented his friend Gaspard Monge’s ideas on the principles of descriptive geometry and higher mathematics.

  F. Vigel recalled Betancourt in this manner: “He appeared as a mechanic from the hands of the nature itself… He had a great deal of intelligence, and the conversation was interesting. The aristocratic spirit never abandoned him, even when he was at a lathe where he always worked when he had no other things to do”.

  Agustin Betancourt who was at that time at the French service, came to Russia on invitation of Alexander I, by approbation of Napoleon Bonaparte. For Petersburg and for Russia it was “a golden age in architecture”; it was then that came into existance the magnificent ensambles of Dvortsovaya, Senatskaya and Mikhaylovskaya squares, and the Mars Field. The first multispan arc bridge in Russia, across the Malaya Nevka in St. Petersburg, was designed by Agustin Betancourt. And it was he who found original solutions for the erection of such grandiose architectural masterpieces as the Moscow Manege and Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in Petersburg.

  In 1816, Agustin Betancourt headed the Commission for Construction and Hydraulics, supervised the construction of particularly important buildings and structures. By the Betancourt’s project, a currency printing facility was created in St.Petersburg (present-day Goznak factory), and he produced sketches of denominations.

  From 1819 to 1822, Agustin Betancourt was the General Director of Communications, and it was under his control that a widespread construction of highways, bridges and canals was carried out throughout Russia.

  Nevertheless, the Agustin Betancourt’s most important affair was the organization of the Institute of the Transport Engineers Corps which he directed from 1809 to 1822. Betancourt himself worked out the curriculum, set up a library and a museum. It was under Agustin Betancourt that the Institute knew its heyday, became one of the leading scientific and educational centers, exerted a great influence on the entire system of higher engineering education in Russia.