Yefim (1774 - 1842) & Miron Yefimvich Cherepanow (1803–1849)

Yefim Cherepanov (1774-1842) and his son Miron Yefimovich Cherepanov (1803-49) lived in the ironworking city of Nizhny Tagil in the Urals where they were bound as serfs to the Demidow dynasty of industrialists. From 1820 Yefim was chief mechanical engineer for the various industrial complexes in the area. Mirom, his son, was his apprentice and eventually his successor. In 1810 Yefim Cherapanov established a sophisticated mechanical engineering workshop, well-equipped with lathes and other machine tools able to cut gear wheels and screws. He built equipment for blast furnaces, gold ore washing plants, and saw mills and flour mills in the Nizhny Tagil region. From 1820 he built about 20 steam engines of various kinds.

He spent some time in England in the 1820s, and on his return, in 1833-34, he and his son built the first Russian steam locomotive which was set to work on a railway with cast-iron track that served a copper mine. He received little encouragement from his employers and the locomotive was eventually replaced by horses.

The Cherepanovs are commemorated by a monument in Nizhny Tagil, and models of their locomotive are displayed in the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow.