As early as the end of the 17th century the main arms production in Russia was concentrated in Tula, in the State Armoury. By 1730 the Tula State Armory, built in 1712, became the main production base of firearms and cold steel for the Russian army and navy.

During military operations, the formation of new regiments and rearmament, needs in cold steel weapons were also satisfied by deliveries from the Sestroretsk factory and through imports. The cold steel arms were imported to Russia until the beginning of the XX century, in some years quite in large quantities. In the XIX century, mostly blades were imported.

The Tula and Sestroretsk weapon factories continued producing cold steel for the army and navy in the early 19th century. The Tula factory produced all kinds of cold steel weapons, while the Sestroretsk factory only produced cleavers and spades. According to official reports, after 1844 Sestroretsk factory did not produce bladed weapons.

In 1807 the Izhevsk weapon factory began production of bladed weapons. However, the factory produced edged weapons in small amounts, as its main purpose was the production of rifles and pistols.

In the beginning of the 19th century it was decided to reduce the load on the Tula, Sestroretsk and Izhevsk weapon factories from production of bladed weapons by constructing a special factory at the Zlatoust cast-iron foundry in the Urals in order to increase the quantity and quality of manufactured hand-held firearms. The project was developed in 1811, however, the war with Napoleon prevented its realisation and the Zlatoust factory for bladed weapons was not completed and put into operation until 1816-1817.

The main reason for building an arms factory in Zlatoust was the good metallurgical base, such as the Zlatoust iron foundry and ironworks, which had been established as early as 1754. All this would ensure the future factory mass production of cheap edged weapons, and a dense network of surrounding navigable rivers would make it easy to transport them to the central regions of Russia.

The factory was to produce all types of cold steel arms, as well as to fulfill special orders for the production of ornamented weapons.

It was practically impossible to concentrate the production of edged weapons in one place, at the Zlatoust factory. During first 5 years the factory has made approximately third part of an order, which was given to it.

But already in the end of 20ths of XIX century they were: Tula, Sestroretsk and Izhevsk mills produced 123,514 items of edged weapons, and the Zlatoust factory produced 524,353 items of edged weapons or 76% of all production.

In the second half of XIX century Zlatoust factory almost completely satisfied the needs of the army and navy in combat arms for lower ranks. Officers ordered their personal edged weapons privately at the Zlatoust factory. The share of private orders in production Zlatoust was quite significant (in some years could reach 85-86%). This also included weapons, which were sold directly from the factory, although their number was insignificant.

In the early years of the factory's existence, the only workshop that was able to successfully cope with incoming orders was the ornamented weapons workshop. Orders for such weapons were particularly great in the 1820s, in connection with the celebration of anniversaries of the Patriotic War of 1812. Production of decorated weapons reached two and a half thousand pieces per year. In the following years, in connection with the end of mass jubilee awards of arms to generals and officers, government orders for decorated arms declined sharply, and in 1834 the shop of decorated arms was closed. The craftsman-artists were reassigned to branding the blades.

During this period, P.P.Anosov (1799-1851), an outstanding engineer, who had done much to develop and improve the steel production in the Urals, was appointed head of the Zlatoust Works and director of the armoury. For several years he worked on unlocking the mysteries of eastern bulat. His research and numerous experiments were crowned with success and could not fail to attract attention, the cold steel weapons forged from Anosov bulat and Obukhov cast steel contributed greatly to the fact that, starting from the second half of the 1850s, the Zlatoust factory received a constantly growing number of orders for decorated weapons from individual regiments, officers and generals, industrialists, merchants and other private individuals. Orders were first carried out by individual craftsmen, and then the factory reopened its decorated weapons workshop.

In 1854, Pavel Obukhov (1820-1896), a renowned engineer and metallurgist, became the manager of the Zlatoust weapon factory and continued the work of P.P. Anosov.

P.M. Obukhov created five types of cast steel, which made the factory completely replace expensive English steel, not as good as Obukhov's steel. Cast Obukhov steel, together with cast mace by P.P.Anosov, was widely used at the Zlatoust weapon factory for edged weapons manufacture.

The process of mass production of edged weapons was constantly improved at the factory. Since 1850s weapons were made of cast steel. In 1880s the earlier practiced forging of blades was replaced by their rolling in special rolls. To improve fighting qualities of cold steel weapons in the end of XIX - beginning of XX centuries special lead baths for hardening of blades were used, as well as copper and brass tools for cold steel arms were stamped. The crucible steel began to be replaced by the open-hearth steel.

In the second half of XIX century the number of orders for production of ornamented edged weapons increased significantly. Individual regiments, officers of all ranks, industrialists, officials, various organizations and private persons who could pay for the production began to apply to the factory.

From the very first years of the factory's operation, it became famous for its craftsmen.

Despite the fact that Russia at that time had a number of excellent bladesmiths, and had considerable experience in making edged weapons, gunsmiths from Solingen and Klingenthal were brought to Zlatoust. According to the contract concluded with the Russian government, German craftsmen were to organize production on the model of Solingen factories and train Russian craftsmen in the art of arms making.

In 1815, along with other foreign masters invited to Zlatoust, Wilhelm Nikolaus Schaff, the renowned Solingen blade decorator, arrived with his three sons: Ludwig, Johann and Friedrich.

Already the first works made by Russian apprentices were not inferior to their teachers, who were more of an artisan who mastered the techniques of etching and gilding to a high degree. Being the apprentices of the Schafes, young Russian engravers also learned the traditions of Russian armourers from samples of Tula items kept in the arsenal and were constantly familiarized with the then current literature on history, mythology and arts and crafts through illustrated editions subscribed by the library of the armoury.

The Schaffers taught their charges such techniques of artistic processing of steel as engraving, etching and gilding "through fire".

The Solingen masters first engraved their drawings with a needle onto the surface of the blade, which had previously been primed with vermilion. The blade was then dipped into acid, which etched the drawings, leaving the background untouched and covered by the primer. After cleaning the background, the pattern was gilded.

In a short period of time (just three months), the Russian apprentices not only mastered the Shaf's methods of drawing on the metal, but began to do it in their own way. Unlike the Schafes, they drew with thin brushes in cinnabar on the plane of the blade. In this case, after the background was etched, the pattern, covered with cinnabar and not exposed to acid, became relief and retained its former shine of polished steel, while the background acquired a matte shade.

As for the gilding of blades, interesting is the description of the process made by P. Svinyin and published in his "Otechestvennye zapiski" in 1826: "If we need to gild them, they paint them with azure, dry the paint and cover them with amalgam, consisting of 1/10 of gold and 9/10 of mercury, after wetting the blade with secret composition, which gold does not stick to steel.

Then they put the blade on charcoal: the mercury escapes, but the gold remains on the steel, except for the places covered with paint.

This process of so-called gilding "through the fire" was very harmful to the performer because of the constant exposure of his body to mercury vapour.

In their work, Zlatoust masters used various types of gilding: flat, raised and high. Flat gilding was achieved when the pattern on the blade was engraved with a needle and gilded on the contour from above. A high gilding required an etching of the background, then the pattern appeared in gilded relief. For high it was necessary to make the background even deeper and more densely overlaid with gilding, which created the impression of high relief.

Russian craftsmen soon became actively involved in the production process, thus depriving the Chafes of their monopoly position at the Zlatoust weapon factory. From then on the decorated weapons were mainly produced by Russian craftsmen.

To Russia the Schafs brought their own, developed in Solingen manner of decorating blades, which was characterized by compositional disjointedness of the depicted. The holomencloths of the blade were engraved with separate, semantically unrelated drawings. If there were any attempts to combine them on the plane of the blade, it was done purely mechanically, with the help of a decorative frame.

Russian artists very soon created their own trend in weapons decoration, which was characterized by the semantic compositional expressiveness and organic connection of drawings with the blade plane. Zlatoust artists resorted to different techniques, which contributed to the expression of military strength and glory, power and invincibility of the Russian people in the fight against foreign invaders. They drew slender compositions of Russian arms, armour, battle banners and standards, military headdresses and musical instruments. Sometimes the compositions were supplemented with images of the Russian coat of arms and royal monograms, variously ornamented shields and polygons. Such drawings, inscribed vertically in the blade plane, emphasized its share length. But they could also have been placed horizontally on the holomere of the blade. In this case the fusion with the blade surface was achieved by elongating the composition horizontally, which always had a centre (be it a monogram, coat of arms or shield) from which banners and standard, lances and swords, laurel and palm branches streamed far to the right and left, from bottom to top. This method of composition created the impression of unquenchable movement, triumphant victorious rise glorifying both the weapon and the hero who possessed it. In this and other cases it is obvious that artists strive to build their compositions in the form of a classical triangle, the apex of which is guessed behind the plane of the blade when it is built horizontally. The monograms, swords and scepters were symbols of power and authority, while the branches of the oak and laurel were symbols of courage and glory.

The artist often included inscriptions in the decoration of the blades that, while having a semantic meaning, were also a decorative element thanks to their fancy lettering.

The gilding used in this process, whether polished or matt, was matched by artists with a great sense of proportion by a cold blotch of different shades, ranging from blue and violet to black velvety.

The most important and interesting aspect in the development of the original style of Zlatoust engraving was its thematic orientation in the decoration of edged weapons. Its founder was I.N.Bushuyev, Shafov's pupil. Like many Russian artists of the time, he often drew subjects for his drawings from Greek history and mythology, creating compositions from armoury and heraldry, including allegorical images, images of Greek gods and ancient warriors. Most important in his oeuvre, however, was the creation of miniatures on the themes of Russian history. It was Bushuyev who for the first time at the Zlatoust weapon factory began to decorate weapons with multi-figured battle scenes and compositionally resolved them in a broad panoramic view.

A direct follower and continuator of Bushuyev's original art of decorating knives was another outstanding artist, the talented master of the Zlatoust weapon factory Ivan Petrovich Boyarshinov (1804-1848).

Boyarshinov's creative handwriting was directly influenced by Bushuyev. In his early years, classicism was his main stylistic base. Unlike Bushuyev, who loved to draw battle scenes, Boyarshinov fond of picturing scenes of hunting in the Ural Mountains, with which he decorated his hunting knives and daggers.

Boyarshinov was one of the first at the Zlatoust weapon factory to become interested in oriental motifs in the decoration of blades. He depicted the figures of Turkish warriors with a bunchuk and a lance in their hands on a sabre he made in 1830. Its halves are ornamented with six-pointed stars, framed by stylised draperies in the form of a tent (an element of oriental decoration); on the other hand, typical elements of antique decoration are placed in the same frame.

As time goes by, ornamentation begins to dominate Boyarshinov's clear compositions. Whereas previously the artist used it as a frame framing the armatures and battle scenes depicted on the blades, now this ornamentation becomes the main motif of decoration.

The use of the famous P.P. Anosov bulat and Obukhov steel in the manufacture of blades by the Zlatoust weapon factory and their high level of artistry in decoration made the Zlatoust decorated weapons famous not only in Russia, but also far beyond its borders.

During the last third of the 19th century Zlatoust craftsmen returned to creating fine ornamental weaves on their blades, to the use of combinations of gilding and silvering, as seen on the "Golden Weapon" sabre. "The Golden Weapon was awarded to officers for military exploits. The hilt of such weapons was made of gilded copper (rarely pure gold). On the hilt of the hilt was engraved the inscription: "For bravery".

The spelling of the inscription on the blade is interesting. In the second half of the 19th century, along with calligraphic script that had been in use ever since the foundation of the Zlatoust weapon factory, ancient Slavonic script appeared, and in some cases the artists turned to Slavonic script. The ornamentation is geometric or vegetable, and more often combined, which filled the surface of the blade or of the butt and was torn by one or more windows in which the artists placed inscriptions and images.

In the second half of the XIX century the galvanic method of gilding and silvering was introduced at the Zlatoust factory instead of mercury gilding "through fire". This method made the work process faster and cheaper and spared precious metals, but, on the other hand, it also lowered the individuality of the master's artistic handwriting, which increasingly gave way to standardization.

Compositions where the text played a major role in the decoration of the blades began to occupy a significant place. In the 80s and 90s the handwriting of the masters has become more and more standardised.

In the 80-90-ies in the ornamental decoration of blades artists, along with traditional decor, introduce realistic images of native flowers, fruits and herbs: these are field bells and daisies, ears and five-petal flowers, serrated leaves, sometimes depicted even with veins. Plot images on blades are being revived. Artists are once again turning to thematic miniature as an element of edged weapon decoration. In particular, cleverly and imaginatively decorated blades and sheaths of hunting knives and daggers. They depict forest landscapes with animals, hunters with their dogs, and lakes with game and fishermen's houses.

The remarkable art of the craftsmen of the Zlatoust weapon factory was at a high level throughout the entire 19th century, and the works produced at the factory were considered unsurpassed not only in Russia, but also in the oldest armoury centres of Western Europe in their artistic value and the technique of their execution.

Artistic creations of Zlatoust masters of the last century engender in Russian people a feeling of pride for their people, who brought up such brilliant talents, and for our native culture that reached a high level in those early and difficult times. To this day their perfection, beauty, and uniqueness bring people joy and delight, and foster high patriotic feelings and love for our beautiful Motherland.

Zlatoust armourers of our time sacredly keep and increase traditions of their distant predecessors. In their best works the masters of Zlatoust engraving on steel address to themes of high patriotic sounding, in which brightly and figuratively glorify military and labour exploits of the Russian people.