Mikhail Naletov

Born 1869 in Astrakhan; died Mar. 30, 1938, in Leningrad. Russian inventor; creator of the world’s first submarine minelayer.

Naletov studied at the St. Petersburg Technologic Institute; but after the death of his father, he was forced to discontinue his studies, and with a railroad technician’s diploma he went to Port Arthur. In 1904 he designed a submarine minelayer and built it in the same year with his own money. The minelayer was successfully tested but had to be destroyed before the surrender of the fortress to the Japanese. In 1907, Naletov designed a new minelayer, the Krab, which was launched in Nikolaev in 1912, but construction on it was completed only in 1915. He also made several other inventions, in particular a special mine for the Krab. After the Great October Socialist Revolution, Naletov worked at the Kirov Plant in Leningrad (until 1934).