📍Tobolsk, Tyumen Oblast, Russia
1834 – 1848“I was born in February 1834 in Tobolsk, the old capital of Siberia, on the banks of the Irtysh River, the youngest of a very large family. My father, Ivan, was director of the town's gymnasium, but soon after I was born he went blind and had to give up his post. It was my mother, Maria Dmitrievna, who held us together. She took over her brother's glassworks in the village of Aremzyanskoye, near Tobolsk, and ran it herself, which was remarkable for a woman in those days. I spent my childhood between the town and the glassworks. We children ran around the district with the village boys, and I loved to slip into the factory to watch glass being made from sand and soda, glowing and changing colour as it was blown. My mother let us blow little glass balls ourselves, coloured with copper and iron. She loved books and filled our home with them. In Tobolsk I went to the gymnasium, where I was not a star at Latin and German but loved mathematics and science. Political exiles, including some of the Decembrists, lived in Tobolsk, and one of them taught me science. In 1847 my father died, and a year later the glassworks burned down. My mother, determined that I should have an education, travelled with me thousands of miles across Russia, first to Moscow and then to St Petersburg, where I was accepted to train as a teacher. She did not live long after, and I later dedicated one of my books to her memory, honouring all she had sacrificed. In 1869 I published the periodic table of the elements.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today