Two riveted iron extractors—up to 655.2 kg each, about 1.31 tonnes of simultaneous charge.
Materials and techniques
Wax
The basis of candle production
Sources on wax, its preparation and processing help us study the candle works’ technology.
Primary source · December 1918
Benzine wax extraction at Zelino
Andrianov’s report and the related survey act provide a quantified view of the extraction section. Documentary fact is separated from technical reconstruction.
Stated yield per vessel: roughly 49–295 kg of wax, depending on the waste grade.
Two coolers and two separators. Their presence is established; the separator duty and pipework are unknown.
The related act requested this amount for a year’s work. Benzine as a process solvent is a fact of the file, not an analogy.
Why the annual figures do not form one balance
A mean yield of about 15% from the stated 25,000 poods of waste would give 3,750 poods of wax, below the stated capacity of 10,000 poods of candles. Stocks separately included 181 poods of Japanese wax, 2,980 poods of waste and fifty poods of candles. The figures therefore belong to different production circuits and do not show that all candles came solely from wax extracted on site.
V2 · Period terminology In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century industrial chemistry, a “cooler” commonly meant a cooled condenser rather than a modern compression refrigerator. This explains the class of apparatus, not the exact construction at Zelino.
V3 · Probable reconstruction Distillation, condensation and possible benzine return are supported by period analogues and the coolers, but the exact Zelino sequence is not described.
The technical study is continuing.
Place in the history of the site
Wax extraction appears in the 1918 records and became the principal production profile of the Soviet period.
History of the site and its names
What the wax terms mean
Beeswax is wax material of bee origin. Colour alone does not establish a batch’s purity, origin or suitability.
Yellow beeswax means wax retaining a natural yellow colour after initial preparation. The project uses it as a historical and research term.
Bleached beeswax is wax whose colour has been lightened by a bleaching operation. An archival mention of that operation is not a ready modern formula.
Cleaning, processing and bleaching
Wax preparation may include removing mechanical impurities, separating batches and checking properties. The exact parameters of a modern process are determined through research and trials.
The current stage is research into the archival process. Future experimental results will be published with their methods and limits of applicability.
Directions under research
Yellow and bleached beeswax are considered in historical and process contexts. The research connects evidence about materials, cleaning and forming methods with the records of the Staritsa Candle Works.
How we verify evidence about materials
Each research sample requires a documented origin, composition, storage conditions and test method. Colour, purity, moisture and melting point are described from verified results. A material’s historical use is distinguished from conclusions about a modern sample’s suitability for candle-making or conservation.
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