Pliushch, Yefrem

Pliushch, Yefrem [Плющ, Єфрем; Pljušč, Jefrem], 8 February 1872 in Borzna, Chernihiv gubernia, d 1944. Civil engineer and specialist in bridge and rail construction. During the rule of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky he served as an inspector of roads in the Ministry of Transportation, and in 1919 he was director of railroads for the government of the Ukrainian National Republic. After the First World War he worked as a railway construction engineer in Poland. A prolific inventor, he developed new construction methods, among them methods of building concrete structures under water, laying rail lines over swamps, and preventing derailing on bridges.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]