In 1871, Pirotsky moved back to Saint Petersburg, where among other things he proposed a new type of
blast furnace. In 1874, he started experiments on Volkov Field in Saint Petersburg, and in 1875 experimented at the
Sestroretsk railway
Miller's line (not far from the station
Miller's pier). The electricity was transferred over a distance of approximately one kilometer in order to power an electric motor. In his design, rails were connected to a
Gramme generator. Both rails were isolated from the ground, one rail served as a direct conductor and one as a reverse conductor. In 1880, he modified a city two-decker
horse tramway to be powered by electricity instead of horses, and on the unusual form of public transport started to serve residents of Saint Petersburg amid the vocal protests of the owners of the horsecars. The experiments continued until the end of September 1880. Some historians claim that this was the first electric tram in the world. Pirotsky did not have the money to continue his experiments, but his works stirred interest in electric trams around the world. Among people who met Pirotsky was
Carl Heinrich von Siemens who was very interested and asked many questions. In 1881, the brothers Siemens started producing their own design of electric trams commercially. The first permanent electric tram line using Siemens tram cars was opened in Berlin in 1881 and the first permanent tram line in the Russian Empire was opened in Kiev in 1892. As often happens with talented people, Pirotsky was underestimated during his lifetime. Despite his famous inventions, he was sent to the Ivangorod Fortress, where in 1888 he was dismissed early with the rank of colonel. All this happened about five months before the end of 25 years of military service, which allowed him to receive the maximum pension. Pirotsky continued to serve as an artillery officer of the
Imperial Russian Army. Among other things, he installed the first underground electric cable in Saint Petersburg to transfer electricity from a cannon foundry to the Artillery School (1881). He also was the author of a project for centralizing the city's electricity production using underground cables, he proposed new constructions of blast furnaces and bakery ovens. In 1888, he retired with the rank of
colonel, lived on his military pension in the town of
Alyoshki (today Oleshky,
Kherson Oblast,
Ukraine) where he died in 1898. Since no money was found on him when he died, the burial was paid for by a credit secured by the colonel's furniture. ==Sources==