The inventor of the first-ever telegraph and the first-ever cable code and the 19th century best secret cipher, Alexander Pushkin's friend and the founder of Russia's first lithograph, a Russian hussar and the first European researcher of the Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism, a scientist and a diplomat - all that is about Pavel Schilling.

Pavel Lvovich Schilling (Schilling von Cannstatt) was a Russian diplomat, orientalist historian and an electrician inventor. Baron von Schilling was of the Baltic German origin. He served in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and participated in battles of the Patriotic War of 1812.

At the end of 1828 Pavel Schilling was selected a corresponding member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Baron von Schilling participated in a scientific expedition to the Eastern Siberia (1830 — 1832) and created a valuable collection of Tibetan and Mongolian monuments of literature. In addition to that he studied the history and languages of the peoples of Asia.

The first ever electromagnetic telegraph was set up by him in St. Petersburg on October 21, 1832. Pavel Schilling is also known as the developer of the method of electric mine firing (1812).