OLEH MYKULYCH,
PhD in History,
Corresponding Member
of Ukrainian Petroleum Academy

Yet another oil industrialist in Galicia, Jan Mitis follower, was mining specialist, public official of the Truskavets salt industry, Czech, engineer Joseph Hekker, who from about 1808 to 1819 lived in the town of Drohobych or Modrychi village. At first, he was a public official of salt industry in the town of Kosovo. After taking up an appointment outside Drohobych, he deployed active mining activity. In 1810, Joseph Hekker established the Truskavets Mining Society Good Hope to search for minerals, to extract silver-bearing galena, that is, sulphuric lead, which contains silver impurities. In 1814, in the Truskavets village on the so-called Babyna mount in the Lipki forest the Society dug out the St. Anne hole-well with a depth of 19 fathoms. Its geological structure was described by the then employee in mining affairs at the royal administration of estates and salterns Karol Schindler in his tractate published in 1814 in Vienna. It mentions the deposits of «... asphalt, the bituminous-sulphur springs break from these deposits in many places.»

Hekker’s interest in the oil brine was a consequence of his active and fruitful activity in searching brown coal (Novoselitsa, Mishina), sulphuric and metallic ores, saltwort (Truskavets) and, above all, earth wax (Kosmach, Sloboda Rungurskaya, Truskavets). When producing asphalt for the needs of salterns, which was the product of refining of oil and earth wax, Joseph Hekker received a by-product that was initially of no demand, an oily substance, fuel agent, with a sharp odor that, given the consistency, could not be used even as oil to cover carts with. Later, Joseph Hekker drew attention to its lighting capacity and, after testing, began to produce lighting oil for local needs. He started to extract the oil brine from the ditch in the meadows near the Truskavets village. After that, a few shallow mines were put into operation, and the largest source of oil brine was found in the Christian’s mine, which also contained natural gas. Joseph Hekker built in Modrychi village or its surroundings not far from Borislav village in Gubichi village small refinery (oil refinery) to distill crude oil into fractions. Ruins of this refinery existed back in 1880. Here about 1813 he made first attempts to distill (process, purify) the oil brine for industrial lightening. In his article-report dated 1819 „Das Bergöhl in Galizien”, which was published in the edition Soobshcheniya of the Vienna Polytechnic Institute, Joseph Hekker describes both the details of its interest in the oil brine, and the way it is distilled, and also gives the time limits to use purified oil brine for lighting instead of vegetable oil. Distillation took place in a large copper boiler to keep vodka, took two or two and a half days at a constant and low temperature.

The oil brine distillation product was oil and the remnants of black ointment. Valuable is also his description of the process of production and popularization of the first oil lamp introduced by Joseph Hecker: „Jeżeli się chce posługiwać naftą do palenia w lampach, to najlepiej jest tak zrobić: wziąć flaszkę na 4 do 5 cali wysoką, zanurzyć w nią rurkę, a w to włożyć knot. Im krótszy jest knot, oraz im słabszy, tym lepiej i z tym mniejszym swędem pali się na przykład knot, składający z 10 nitek, rozdzieli na pięć cienkich rureczek, wówczas otrzymuje się więcej światła, niż gdyby się ten cały knot włożyło do jednej rurki. Przy czystym i dobrym urządzeniu jedna lampa może palić się nawet 24 godziny bez potrzeby czyszczenia jej. Lampa bez knota podobna jest do westwalskiego ognia, ponieważ wystarczy tylko ustawicznie materiału płynnego dolewać. Z taką lampą trzeba być jednak bardzo ostrożnym. Tę cieniutką rureczkę przez którą nafta wychodzi, należy obkitować kitem niezapalnym, składającym się z opiłek żelaza, siarki, wapna i salmiaku. Jeżeli zaś nafta wycieknie obok rurki, wówczas następuje wybuch”. He also writes about the oil brine in Sloboda Rungurskaya village. When distilling the brine from Sloboda Rungurskaya, he received 16% of the net oil, while the brine from Truskavets gave 30% of the net oil. In Truskavets, there was also a small amount of earth sap (wax). The oil brine in Sloboda Rungurskaya on the territory of the «domain» was leased, the traders mixed it with tar in Kolomyia for sale. Since 1816, Joseph Hekker’s oil brine distillate was used to light up the streets of Drohobych and its suburbs, salterns in the villages of Truskavets and Lyatsk, military shelters of the Austrian infantry regiment in Sambor within eight months until the regiment departure to Italy. Baron Robert Portner of this regiment claimed that in this way he had got good results, that during this time there had been not a single patient, and before that time he had taken 5, 6 or 8 people to the hospital. He wrote not only about the fundamental possibility of replacing linseed oil with oil when lighting, but also that such a replacement allows the light to burn almost twice as brightly. Besides, considerable savings of cotton wicks was achieved. He also introduced several probably lighter oil fractions to clean wool from dirt, «up to the spots from the wheeled ointment». It was, one can say, the world’s first dry cleaning. By the way, Joseph Gekker entered into the first export deal to use oil distillate for lighting. Following successful attempts of distillation, he made in September 1816 an attempt to demonstrate lighting with oil distillate in two capitals: the State Mint and the Mining Department in Vienna and organized a public street lighting demonstration in the Small Market in Prague.
These attempts resulted in considerable interest. The experiment appeared to be so successful that, being captured by positive results, Joseph Hekker, under the facilitation of the Truskavets Mining Society, in 1817 entered into an agreement with the Prague Magistrate to supply 160 centners of distillate provided the need of 350 centners (a larger volume of oil brine could not be produced on-site) at a price of 3,400 florins to light up the Old Market and the streets of the city The first transport held 14 barrels of distilled oil. However, due to poor weather conditions and transportation difficulties caused by heavy snowfalls, the distillate sent was in safekeeping of the forwarder in Przemysl and Olomouc and only in the spring was delivered to Prague. But for the reason of transport delay and because of that the quality of the distillate did not meet the agreed requirements due to partial leakage and evaporation of light distillate fractions because of leakage of the barrels, the Prague Magistrate refused to take the distillate, and, referring to an exception in the agreement, terminated the deal and initiated proceedings. Under the court decision, Joseph Hekker had to pay 5000 florins of reimbursement. As a result of such a court decision and due to the reduction in oil production in the mines, Joseph Hekker, finding himself in a difficult financial situation, stopped further distillation of the oil brine. He sold the remaining unused distillate to neighboring pharmacies, where it was used as a replacement for missing «stone oil» supplied from Italy. The galena mining company was also liquidated when the Viennese specialists announced that the Truskavets lead ore contained little silver, and its rational exploitation was unprofitable. In 1815, oil brine extraction took place in Borislav, Naguevichi and Popeli in Drohobych district, as well as in Sloboda Rungurskaya and Kosmach of Stanislavsky district. Oil brine extraction in 1815-1816 was so large-scale that its use solely as oil to the wheels of carts became impractical. Its large-scale processing for lighting purposes was started. In 1817, for the first time ever in Europe, refined oil was used to light up Drohobych barracks of the Austrian troops on Truskavetska street and Drogobych salterns. Joseph Hekker was not the only one who was engaged in production of this lighting oil distillate. Other employees of salterns such as Franciszek Schneider in 1818 and already mentioned Jan Mitis, who was even considered an ally of Joseph Hekker, were also engaged in this activity in the vicinity of Drohobych. Such distillation plants appeared mainly at salterns in places of asphalt production. Peasants and Galician merchants distillated oil brine in a crude way.
However, the performance of known sources of oil brine was low, as at that time it amounted to 200 to 300 garnets (656 to 984 liters) of products weekly. Franciszek Schneider also took lease of oilfields to extract oil brine in the villages Oriv and Yasenitsa-Solna, as evidenced by a receipt and payment request from the Financial and State Administrations in Drogobych dated 1822 and 1823. In 1822, the first oil lamp was installed in Drogobych in front of the city hall. In 1836, they began to light up the city streets. The German writer Karol Philippe Funke (1752-1807) in his work „Naturgeschichte und Technologie” (Vienna, 1817) describes the oil brine and mentions the extraction of earth wax near Drohobych and its use for making candles by locals. In 1818, candles were invented, which were made of stearin, earth wax and paraffin. In the years 1819-1820, the second census of land property and emblements was made in Galicia. Therefore, according to the so-called «Franciscan Metrics» drawn up in Boryslav in 1819, residents of the villages of Borislav and Mraznitsa, who were engaged in the extraction of the oil brine, were obliged to give back annually to the owner of the village two garnets of clean oil brine in the form of tribute in kind: «... tudzież od Ropników szukaiących ropy, gatunek mazi ziemney, po dwa garnce Ropy dobrey czystej». The same metrics mentions the name of the small river (stream) in Boryslav - «Rapny Potok». It can be affirmed that the development of the oil industry in Borislav started at the beginning of the XIX century, when the peasants of this small village gathered the natural sources of the oil brine from the bleeding sand layers over the Tismenitsa River or also dug hole-wells, the so-called box holes, from which the peasants gathered the oil brine mixed with water. To separate and inspissate the oil brine, which floated on the water surface, the peasants beat with rods for as long as the light hydrocarbon fractions evaporated.
Oil purified in this way was pumped into barrels and taken to the fairs in Drogobych, where it was sold as an ointment to grease wheel axles in carts and various primitive farm machines. Hereout oil was transported deep into the country. Today one can still see in the Tismenitsa River bed in several places such box holes, the walls of which were protected from shedding with willow baskets, thanks to which these box holes came down to us. Detailed information on the extraction, use and lighting of Lviv streets with the purified oil brine is provided by the Lviv geographer, historian and publicist, first director (1827) of the Ossolinskie Public Institution in Lviv Roman Catholic priest František Särčiński, the Sas emblem (1758-1829) in his tractate «Galicja czyli Słownik historyczno-statystyczno-geograficzny królestwa Galicji» written in 1828 and published in 1857, he gives various names (synonyms) of the oil brine: «Skało-oley, czyli oley skalny, po łacinie bitumem lub petroleum, po niemiecku Bergöhl, dawniey po polsku kipiączka, lub ciekączka, a w mowie pospolitej na Rusi porkura, lub ropą zwany». Describing the oil brine seeps in Naguevichi, next to Staraya Sol, in the vicinity of Sambor, Pechenezhyn, Lyatsk, Kosmachi, Smolnaya, Krasnaya and Stanislaviv, František Särčiński mentioned its relationship with salt water seeps. He also says about the factory of Joseph Hekker, which in 1820 gave 1,000 garnets (about 3,280 liters) of oil annually, as well as the fact that this oil was used to light up Lviv streets. František Särčiński also mentions earth oil extraction in Naguevichi. Describing the process of its extraction and application, he recalls that the oil was used by people in night-lights (lamps): «Oczyszczona prokura, którą iużbym wtedy dla różnicy skało-oleiem nazywał, pali się dobrze, lubo daje dym gęsty i kopci, nic jednak po sobie niezostawia, i cały się wypala; takowy do oświecania ulic we Lwowie używany bywał. Druga zaś podleysza pełna mętów pali się ciemno, więcey kopciu sprawia, i po wypaleniu popiół i żużel z niego zostaie». In 1828, residents in Smolnaya village of Drohobych district also extracted oil brine. The performance of oil sources in Eastern Galicia is determined by the geologist, Professor Jerzy Bogumil Pusz (1790-1846), who in 1817-1830 made 18 long trips, being actively engaged in geological research. His main fruitful work was devoted to the synthesis of the geological structure of the territory of Poland (including the development of paleontology matters), which was first presented at the Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians in Berlin (September 1828), and subsequently published in short in Polish (Warsaw, 1830) in the translation by Adam Kitaevsky „Krótki rys geognostyczny Polski i Karpat Północnych czyli opisanie zewnętrznego kształcenia i wewnętrznego składu ziemi tego kraju”. In his tractate, the author describes various minerals related to bitumen occurrences, numerous leaks of rock oil in Eastern Galicia and Moldavia: „Są one często bituminem przeniknięte, (i dla tego w prażeniu wydają nieprzyjemną wonią przypalonego olejku), łączą się z bituminowemi marglami, i zmieniają się na pewien rodzaj pół-opalu… Jest to szary i czarny bituminowy wapień, za potarciem cuchnący, gdzieniegdzie smołę ziemną,… w sobie zawierający… Wytryskuje wiele źródeł skał-oleju w Galicyi wschodniej i Mołdawii”. In the second volume of another tractate published in Stuttgart-Tübingen in 1836, he writes about the seeps of rocky oil sources in Borislav, Popeli and Truskavets. The author also mentions earth sap (earth wax), which creates thin layers between rocks and is a product of oxidation of liquid rock oil. In 1831 in Drohobych, an official permit for the oil brine extraction was granted to the administrator of the public estate, the nobleman Jozeph Mitsevski.
Back in 1827, he received permission in Vienna to construct in Truskavets a stationary house to take a bath and four houses to accommodate tourists. Actually from that time Truskavets became a resort area. According to „Berliner Blau“, the Austrian mineralogist Ernest Fryderyk Glocker (E. F. Glocker 1793-1858) in 1833 for the first time introduced the name «ozokerit» for the Moldovan earth wax, which later overspread both on the territory and abroad. In 1830-1840, a peasant named Baitala, who apparently originated from the vicinity of Borislav or Naguevichi, brought oil brine distillate to Sambir municipal pharmacy. It was a colorless flammable fluid with a sharp odor. He distilled the oil brine in an iron pot having gun barrel attached. These were going to be mainly light petroleum hydrocarbons obtained as a result of distillation of the oil brine at a temperature of up to 100-120°C. Baitala delivered his product throughout Galicia and, as far as it was known, sold it as a medicine for sheep against liver distomiasis. At that time, the extraction of oil brine took place in the lowlands of the above areas, as well as on the banks of rivers and streams, so it is not surprising that Baitala had his further followers. They however drew the oil brine out of small holes on the surface, supplying it to the Galician villages and towns. The way of its extraction was primitive. They dug out a dale 2 to 3 fathoms deep, the walls of which were laid out by weaving of branches. Oil brine flew into this dale together with water and schooled up. It was gathered with a bunch of long grass tied at one end or a horse tail braided. Such braids absorbed the oil brine, which was further pressed with hands. This procedure took place until gathering all the oil, and after water was scooped out.
This was usually done on trading days, when the oil brine was in demand as greasing. For this purpose, the oil brine was made more dense by adding clay, peat and even raw animal material. Two containers of this ointment were carried on a stick (balance arm) through the farmers’ market, and the ointment was sold for quarts or quatters. Despite the general economic stagnation in Galicia, the exploitation of the oil brine and earth wax, although in a primitive manner and only for the needs of villages and crafts, continued to exist and even developed. The field of application extended into the strengthening of wood, greasening of rapidly rusting products, sealing of boats. The number of primitive attempts to distillate oil brine by peasants and Jews also grew. In 1835, there were already 30 operating box holes in Boryslav, of which 4 mugs (16 liters) of oil brine was extracted daily, that is about 15,000 liters annually. It was gathered with brooms from water surface accumulated in these box holes. This year, Jerzy Bogumil Pusz estimated Prykarpattya’s total oil brine extraction in the amount of 12,000 cubic feet (290 tons). According to the government regulations issued in Vienna in October 17, 1838 and November 30, 1840, the oil brine, natural bitumen, asphalt and natural resin were again assigned to the state monopoly, which extraction again required official permission. Such permission was again granted to Joseph Mitsevsky. After setting the high industrial cost of earth wax, thr extraction permission was given in Truskavets in 1838. In 1840, in Stanislav district, the current Ivano-Frankivsk region, there were six petroleum enterprises, which annually extracted 239.96 hectoliters (about 24 thousand liters) of the oil brine out of 75 hole-wells (mines).
The French professor of organic chemistry of Polish origin, the head of the chemical laboratory at the School of Central Arts and Crafts in Paris Philipp Neriush Walter (1810-1847) made in 1840 the first detailed analysis of the earth wax from Galicia extracted in Truskavets from sand layers. Having completed the analysis, he withdrew paraffin, determined the chemical composition, «It consists of carbon and hydrogen, poorly dissolves in alcohol and ether, not affected by sulphuric acid etc.» and approved the general conclusion on the appearance of chemical bonds similar to oil. Back in 1837, F. Walter together with a Parisian chemist, a member of the Chemical Institute Jozeph Pelleter (1788-1842) made a fractionated distillation of the oil brine. The description of the process was published in 1840 in French chemical and pharmaceutical magazines, as well as in German scientific press. This experiment, however, was left without practical conclusions and economic needs. The report of the Presidium of the Regional State Administration in Lviv dated January 12, 1841 stated, «Although the oil brine occurs in many areas throughout the entire
Thr Carpathian mountains range and all districts, however, as far as we know, the oil brine is nowhere extracted in such amount sufficient to provide large enterprises.» On December 28, 1841, the Vienna administration again issued a decree where stated that the oil brine in its pure form was free from the state monopoly, but if it went together with hardened asphalt, it remained state-owned. In 1843, an official permission was provided for oil brine extraction to the Drohobych State Forest Administration. On September 9, 1843, the supplementary edition Rozmaitosti to Gazeta Lwowska wrote that asphalt, as it was called in France and Belgium, in Galicia people got used to call it smolovets, was used for various purposes - from improving roads to roofing. Asphalt was used to protect stone and brick buildings in salt baths (saltnets) from their destroying with salt solution while salt crystallizing. At first, asphalt was produced in Staraya Sol, then in Tustanovichi village near Borislav village (modern town of Borislav) from liquid bitumen, that is oil brine and oil tar. While distillating and separating oil light fractions, gudron remained, the so-called Jewish resin («Judenpech»), complemented with sand, thereby receiving «asfalt-mastix». One famous Polish geologist, Professor of mineralogy at the Kracow University Ludwik Zeishner (1805-1871) in his field studies made in Prycarpattya districts since 1830 drew attention to both mineral waters and oil brine sources, whereof wrote in a special small scientific study. In the years 1848-1857, he headed the department at the Jagiellonian University, giving lessons in zoology, mineralogy and geology.
It was during the geological trips with the students along the Beskids that he drew attention to the oil brine seeps in Prycarpattya and the tradition of its long-standing use as a lighting material. Zeishner was wondered about this matter, he asked the students about the origin of such seeps and whether they know anything about the oil brine seeps in their localities. A student from Galicia said that «I once read in a Czech magazine that in ancient times Sambir was lit up with an earthy fat!». Greek Catholic priest in Zhabie village Father Sofron Vitvitskiy wrote that about 1847 the oil brine had been extracted in Prokurava village of Kosiv district of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, it was the property of the Kuty state administration. Oil seeps were also recorded in several places in Zhabie village. Turchanshchina’s oldest oil field is Limna village (current Drohobych district, Lviv region). Oil was discovered here back in 1848 in the Lysyanka hole at a depth of 80 m, but extraction was soon terminated due to poor sales. In the early XIX century, oil brine commercial extraction was carried out in Nebyliv village. Here, peasants dug box holes in places of oil seeps near the rivers Turiva and Chortenitsa. These box holes were mainly located on the land plot under 4307 cadastral number, which was named «Rapyanki». The oil brine extracted was used to grease the wheels. Earth wax deposits were also discovered in Nebyliv village. It is known that the oil brine was distilled in the field by the employees of the saltern in Stebnik village. Among them was Kleeber, he produced tar and used distillation remnants to light up the salt mines. Lviv pharmacist, master of pharmacy Johann (Jan) Zeg received a sample of this distillate in late 1840’s or early 1850’s.
One of Borislav life experts, Ukrainian writer and teacher, director of one of the largest public schools in Galicia since 1878 Stephan Kovaliv (1848-1920) wrote about the oil brine, in words of Ivan Franko, «upon my request, not on the basis of technical and scientific experiments, but from local translation.» Stephan Kovaliv wrote, «Initially, there was only one «box hole» (well) throughout Boryslav and then in the «New World», and the peasants all over the village scooped «kipyachka» from it back in 1840, that is the oil brine, poured it into the sand ditch to make it densified and then mixed by halves with liquid «kipyachka» and poured it into a barrel filled half with borshch from bran siftings. They threw in such a mixture glowing stones to be overboiled, so that if one soaks pedicel in that strike, it could stretch as the thinnest hair and wind a house several times, then this strike was good to grease carts. This ointment was taken to Drohobych and sold for 4 to 5 dudkas per half-quarts, that is 8-10 kreuzers.» By 1850, the extraction of the oil brine in Borislav reached 200 centners. The young tourist Fyodor Belous wrote about the extraction of the oil brine in Brasil in 1851, «They gather a lot of oil to grease carts, the so-called brine, which is not burned out of pine trees as resin, but can be found without any effort. As there is a fluid of this kind in the earth, and a peasant only digs a narrow hole a few fathoms deep, drops into this hole a bucket or other hooker on a long stick, and in a short time the oil brine appears above the water, and a peasant scoops it out with this hooker. This brine is used as a grease, has a fetid smell and liquid; tar containers in these territories are called rapnitsy.» In 1852, Drohobych Jewish merchants Abraham Schreiner and his allies Leiba Stierman and Eichel Gerze distilled the oil brine in a small refinery near the cemetery in Drohobych. Oil brine was bought from local peasants. This refinery, however, had a short life, as the authorities of Drohobych shut it down after the explosion and fire.
Later, A. Schreiner opened himself a small refinery in Borislav. Back in XVIII century, in the times of Poland, in the town of Pechenezhin, Kolomya district, Ivano-Frankivsk region, there was an old deep hole-well the oil brine was extracted from. And although it was on private lands, however, according to the then mining legislation, was state-owned. After Poland’s partition the mine became the property of the Austrian authorities, and subsequently the state gave it to the Jewish merchant for lease. Having failed to find a reliable source of the oil brine sales, he owed money for this lease. Then, by a court decision, all the extracted oil brine in the amount of several tens of thousands of garnets was confiscated by the state administration. Afterwards, it is this oil brine and petroleum distillate as remnants of asphalt production in Kosiv, Ivano-Frankivsk region, were bought in 1853 by the Mikolyash, Zeg and Lukasevich union in Lviv for further industrial processing, in particular, for lighting. In late 1840’s - early 1850’s, in Boryslav there were several dozen box holes a few feet deep, on the surface of which there was a lot of oil brine. Land owners and peasants scooped it and crude oil, that is brine, sold in the markets to grease wheels in carts, and more liquid named «kipaychka» – to grease leathers. Such exploitaton took place mainly in summer, as in winter the snow filled up these box holes. At that time, the peasants and Boryslav-Drohobych merchants, exploiting a small amount of oil brine and distilling it with own means, oftentimes tried to catch the interest of specialists with this substance. At that time, this olive-dark brown fluid was often brought to Lviv. At this time, several persons were engaged in the research of the oil brine in Lviv, in particular the Lviv industrialist of Prussian origin, the owner of steam powered mills Robert Doms (1815-1893), who afterwards, in 1853, over again started to search through mining methods and discovered in Borislav and its vicinity large commercial deposits of the oil brine, ozokerit and other minarals and became one of the first oil producers and processors in Borislav. He, together with the Lviv public financial official Drak, encouraged its popularization and distribution as a lighting resourse. Another was a Professor at the Lviv University Pless, who in his university chemical laboratory made oil research, during which he lost his sight due to the explosion of the apparatus. The oil brine was also known to Felix Laskovskiy (F. Laskowski), the deputy director of the Territorial Credit Society («Ziemskie Kredytowe Towarzystwo»), and Karol de Lance (К. de Lance), the secretary of the Lviv Chamber of Commerce («Izba Handlowa»).
However, until the middle of the XIX century the oilfield in Eastern Galicia existed on a small scale and only for local needs. This earth product did not dominate in trade as well. At that time, technologists and industrialists did not treat it with all due care, as it was a flammable and explosive fluid that gave a lot of soot, had a bad smell and poorly regulated flame. Under no circumstances it could compete with well-known lighting materials, was poorly studied, in particular from industrial point of view, it was only attributed certain curative properties. Thus, commercial extraction and processing of oil brine in Eastern Galicia was started only in 1853, when in the Lviv pharmacy Under the Golden Star on Shirokaya Street (now - Kopernika Street, 1) the Master of pharmacy Johann (Jan) Zeg (02.09.1817, Lancut - 25.01.1897, Borislav) from Borislav oil extracted, applied and patented on 02.12.1853 oil distillate to be used in lamps specially designed by the Lviv tinsmith Adam Bratkovskiy, who since 1845 made city lamps for lighting. The first such lamp was publicly lightened on March 30, 1853 in Petro Mikolyash’s pharmacy, and after - in the Lviv hospital on July 31, 1853. Since then, the use of both petroleum distillate and other oil refining products for different technical purposes was commenced. Jan Zeg invented a method for processing earth wax (ozokerit) into paraffin to produce candles patented on November 23, 1853. But the most large-scale commercial extraction and processing of oil and ozokerit was carried out in Boryslav and its vicinity. Thanks to these minerals, Borislav from the middle of the XIX century was the world’s most famous, old, large and the only European industrial center of the oil and ozokerit industry.