Genrikh Graftio

Genrikh Osipovich Graftio (Russian: Генрих Осипович Графтио; 26 December 1869 in Dünaburg – 30 April 1949 in Leningrad) was a Russian and Soviet engineer credited as a pioneer of the hydroelectric station construction, as one of the founders of the GOELRO plan, and notable for the construction of the first hydroelectric stations in the Soviet Union, the Volkhov Hydroelectric Station in Volkhov and the Lower Svir Hydroelectric Station in Svirstroy.

Genrikh Graftio graduated from the Imperial Novorossiya University in Odessa in 1892 and the Petersburg Institute of Transport Engineers in 1896, where he was teaching since 1907. In 1921, he was appointed a professor at this university. Between 1896 and 1900 he was intern in Europe and USA, studying the power equipment.

In 1900, Graftio created the first project of the electrified railway in Russia, which was never realized. In 1906, he was charged with developing an electric tram network in Saint Petersburg, then the capital of the Russian Empire, which was opened in 1907. Since 1905, he was involved in project design of hydroelectric stations. In 1905, he designed a project of a power plant on the Vuoksi River (never realized), and in 1910–1911 Graftio designed the power plant on the Volkhov River, which was only realized in 1927.

Between 1918 and 1920 Graftio was the first deputy of the chief construction engineer of the Volkhov Hydroelectric Station, the first hydroelectric station to be built according to the plan.