Valerian Ivanovich Abakovsky ' onMouseout='HidePop("41864")' href="/topics/Latvian_language">Latvian

Latvian language

Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...

: Valerians Abakovskis) is best remembered as the inventor of the Aerowagon

Aerowagon

The Aerowagon or aeromotowagon was an experimental high-speed railcar fitted with an aircraft engine and propeller traction invented by Valerian Abakovsky, a Russian engineer and communist from Latvia...

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Early life

Ethnically Latvian

Latvians

Latvians or Letts are the indigenous Baltic people of Latvia.-History:Latvians occasionally refer to themselves by the ancient name of Latvji, which may have originated from the word Latve which is a name of the river that presumably flowed through what is now eastern Latvia...

, he was born in Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

 on October 5, 1895. Although a talented inventor, he worked as a chauffeur for the Tambov

Tambov

Tambov is a city and the administrative center of Tambov Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tsna and Studenets Rivers southeast of Moscow...

 Cheka

Cheka

Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...

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The Aerowagon

The invention for which Abakovsky is remembered is the Aerowagon; it was an experimental high-speed railcar fitted with an aero engine and propeller traction. It was originally intended to carry Soviet officials.

Death

On 24 July 1921, a group of communists led by Fyodor Sergeyev

Fyodor Sergeyev

Fyodor Andreyevich Sergeyev , better known as Comrade Artyom , was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, agitator, and journalist. He was a close friend of Sergei Kirov and Stalin...

 took the Aerowagon from Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 to the Tula

Tula, Russia

Tula is an industrial city and the administrative center of Tula Oblast, Russia. It is located south of Moscow, on the Upa River. Population: -History:...

 collieries to test it. Abakovsky was also on board. Although they successfully arrived in Tula, on the return route to Moscow the Aerowagon derailed at high speed, killing everyone on board. The following people died in the accident:

• John Freeman
• Oskar Heilbrich
• John William Hewlett
• Fyodor Sergeyev (Artyom)
• Otto Strupat
• Abakovsky himself, at the age of 25.

All six were buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis

Kremlin Wall Necropolis

Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution were buried in mass graves on Red Square. It is centered on both sides of Lenin's Mausoleum, initially built in wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–1930...

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