Pavel Petrovich Melnikov

22 July] 1880 in Lyuban) was a Russian engineer and administrator who, in his capacity as Transport Minister, was in a large measure responsible for the introduction of railroad construction in Imperial Russia.

[1] In the Summer of 1839 Melnikov and another colonel, Nikolai Osipovich Kraft (1798-1857), were sent to the United States to inspect its railroad system and recommend technology to be used in Russia.

The report regarding U.S. railroads which Melnikov compiled upon his and Kraft's return to their homeland, for submission to the imperial Russian authorities, is a massive contribution to American industrial and transportation history.

Melnikov was sufficiently observant about America to note on page 65 of the Journal Article, volume I, book I, that the United States was a nation that was "little inclined to be subjected to the influence of routine," i.e. had a palpable dynamism.

(Previously, only a short line connecting St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo had been built in 1836–37 under Franz Anton von Gerstner.)