After the Crimean War (1853-1856), it became absolutely clear that sailing ships were inferior in capability to steamships, and Russia began implementing a program to build ships with steam power plants.

To service these ships, stokers were needed, and their training was organized at the newly established Stokers' School in Kronstadt in 1868 — the first educational institution for training junior specialists for the steam and ironclad fleet. For this purpose, one of the most famous architectural landmarks of Kronstadt was built — one of the training workshops of the Baltic Fleet Machine School, whose facade is decorated with a magnificent Art Nouveau stained-glass window. Inside was a genuine stoker’s room of a large warship with a working model of a boiler. Such a window was necessary to bring the boiler into the building.

The school became something like a "training base." Over time, the range of specialties for which young men were trained expanded, and sailors-mechanics were trained to service the machines and mechanisms of ships. In 1885, the educational institution was transformed into the Baltic Fleet Machine School. In 1905, the school’s educational and practical base was expanded, and a special Art Nouveau building was constructed for it, which has survived to this day as the "Machine School."

At the beginning of World War I, the Feldsher School was transferred to the Machine School complex from the Kronstadt Naval Hospital. In 1840, the Feldsher School was established at the Kronstadt Naval Hospital to train mid-level medical specialists. Since 1857, it was located in the 5th defensive barracks. Since 1881, the school was housed in the 4th defensive barracks. In December 1916, plans were made to move the Feldsher School out of the Machine School. On January 18, 1918, the school was renamed the Medical Assistants’ College, which was liquidated by the summer of the same year.

In the autumn of 1916, the Naval Department decided to open departments at the Machine School for training junior aviation specialists and drivers. To accommodate these departments, part of a "shed" used for storing rigging at the "Business Yard" was allocated to the Machine School.

This shed was connected to the electricity and heating system of the former rope factory. Classes with sailors began in January 1917. Upon graduation, they were awarded the rank of aviation motorist 1st class and automobile driver 1st class. In addition, classes were opened to train aviation motor non-commissioned officers.

Students of the Machine School, including aviators, actively participated in the events of the February Revolution in Petrograd and in the shootout with government troops in 1917, and this participation was organized rather than spontaneous. Due to the well-known revolutionary events of October 1917, the subsequent reorganization of the army and navy, the formation of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Navy in 1918, the evacuation of the highest Soviet authorities to Moscow, and then the beginning of the Civil War, the training of junior aviation specialists at the Machine School was discontinued.

There is no doubt that among the graduates of the Machine School are outstanding naval figures, but this concerns the Soviet period. Among them, for example, is Lieutenant General of Aviation Ivan Fyodorovich Petrov.

Sources:

https://www.citywalls.ru/house19714.html