PRE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD (1899-1917)
The plant began in 1899 with the foundry of the merchant Andrey Grigorievich Zakolyapin, a native of the Kasli volost’ (region). In those times, the region was already known for its cast-iron foundry (the famous Kasli cast-iron art). The foundry was a small dug-out with a primitive cupola furnace in which copper and cast iron were melted. Only 12 people worked there.
Like many other similar workshops that appeared and were soon gone, the foundry had a very dicey future. Luckily, in the same year, it was bought by Nikolay Dmitrievich Masharov, who is considered the founder of the plant.
He was born into a peasant family in 1865 in the Shaytipsky volost’ of the Yekaterinburg uezd (another unit of administrative division that was used in Russia in the 19th century) of the Perm region. In 1883, the family moved to Tyumen. In the same year, Nikolay Dmitrievich took a job as a cabin boy in the shipping company of the Kukhterin brothers. In 1897, he was already the captain of the ship. In the same year he married the Kukhterins’ sister – Catherine. The dowry of the bride was his first capital, which Nikolay Dmitrievich used to buy a workshop-dug-out wishing to expand the foundry business in Tyumen. Immediately after the purchase of the workshop, he enlarged it with the first wooden buildings. But a year later, they were destroyed in a fire.
The land of 0.2 hectares, on which the workshop was located, belonged to the city and could be withdrawn at any time. To avoid this, the owner of the burnt workshop appealed to the city government with a request to transfer the land to his full ownership "in order to build new stone structures to revive the foundry, offer permanent employment for a hundred residents, and promote industrial development of the city which is so necessary".
N. D. Masharov was granted the land for permanent use. August 11, 1901 he established the "Masharov and K" partnership, which included him, three more merchants and a trading house "Gilev and Sons".
In the same year construction began. A brick building of the foundry shop, a mechanic shop, a nailery, and warehouses were built. Later, an enamelling workshop was added. The factory produced dishware, artistic, and industrial castings as well as nails.
The Siberian Trade Newspaper of February 2, 1913 reported that the partnership "Masharov and Co." produces all kinds of cast-iron and enamel dinnerware, furnace parts, household items, nails, etc."
In addition, the foundry "takes all sorts of orders from factories, plants and shipping companies and makes castings of all kinds for mechanical, chained and copper machine parts in rough and finished condition using customers’ drawings and pictures." Later, the plant started to produce small batches of threshing and winnowing machines. Art casting was always of high quality. These products were traded at the annual Irbit and Ishim fairs. They were exhibited at the first West Siberian exhibition in Omsk in 1911.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the partnership "Masharov and Co" became the largest industrial enterprise in Tyumen. The foundry was equipped with two more cupola furnaces with a horse driven air injection mechanism. In 1908, it was replaced by a steam engine. Later, the plant was the first in Tyumen to switch to an electromechanical drive. Before the First World War, the machine room with a dynamo was put into operation and a two-storey mechanical shop was built. By that time, the foundry employed 60 persons. The nailery had 13 machines and the same number of workers. The metal working shop had 15 machines. In addition, the plant had a raster mill. The working conditions at the plant, just like at other industrial enterprises in Russia, were poor. The working day was 12 hours.
THE PREWAR PERIOD (1917-1940)
After the revolution, the plant continued to exist: the same range of products was produced on the same premises. But due to high production costs, they were difficult to sell. At the end of 1922, the plant was forced to reduce the volume of production and the number of workers. From 1923 to 1932, the plant expanded its production areas. At that time the plant was called a Cast-Iron and Mechanical Plant "Mekhanik". The foundry was expanded. A mold-making shop, new offices and warehouses were built.
Nikolay Konstantinovich Rybalov, an honorary citizen of Tyumen, holder of Order of the Red Banner of Labor and the Badge of Honor, who worked at the plant as a model maker for more than 60 years, said the following about that period: "I came to the plant in 1920 as a fifteen-year-old boy. The plant was very different then: small, noisy, the cupola furnaces were sparkling with boiling metal. We worked selflessly. The factory was undergoing reconstruction, and the people were eager to launch “their” refurbished plant as soon as possible."
With the development of the enterprise, the product range expanded. In 1923, the plant began to produce milk churning machines “Viktoria”; in 1925, a complicated “Bolinder” sawmill frame; in 1926, wool-beating machines.
On August 1, 1929, the plant became part of “Uralmetallotrest”. By that time, it had already been specializing in the production of woodworking machines. In 1928, a sleeper-cutting machine "Tuner" was purchased (such machines were paid for in gold). In February 1929, the first batch of five sleeper-cutting machines was produced. In the same year, 45 more machines were manufactured. And in 1930, there were already 430 machines! The new machines proved to be extremely reliable. These machines were used for sawing logs into sleepers, boards and beams. Versatility, ease of maintenance and low chain immediately meant they were in high demand. First, sleeper cutters were supplied mainly to the Urals market.
And soon they were delivered to all Russian regions with developed woodworking industry. In the second half of 1930, the plant was renamed into a Machine-Tool Building Plant "Mekhanik". After launching the production of sleeper-cutting machines in Tyumen, their import was completely discontinued.
In 1931, the first batch of spudder machines was manufactured. They were similar to the Austrian "Rosser" and the two-saw edging machine of the "Bolinder" system. Thus, the plant started production of the woodworking equipment which used to be purchased abroad. Thanks to domestic production, the plant's staff saved up to 4 million gold rubles, earlier spent on imported equipment.
During the first five-year plans (since 1928) the plant produced the following types of machines:
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spudders - more than 300 pieces;
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surfacing machines - about 1200 pieces;
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sleeper-cutting machines - 1800 pieces;
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cross-cutting machines - 1700 pieces;
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mobile sawmills - about 60 pieces.
WORLD WAR II PERIOD (1941-1945)
World War II began. From the first days, a lot of the plant workers volunteered to go to the front line. The overwhelming majority of men left for the Red Army both voluntarily and on first call of military commissariats. Women and teenagers replaced them in their workplaces. The plant switched to the wartime work regime and began production of military equipment: mortars, 82 mm and 120 mm mines, and body shells for howitzers. Military representatives were sent to the plant. In 1941, 78 workers and specialists of the Kiev plant "Krasnyi Ekskavatorshchik" together with all the equipment were evacuated to the plant. The evacuated plant was soon reassembled and put into operation. In October of the same year, 4,500 mine shells and 3,000 artillery shells were produced.
In 1943, the front's demand for mortars was completely satisfied; and the plant's staff switched only to mine production. Since the middle of 1943, the plant specialized in producing 120 mm chemical mines for smoke screening. In October 1943, the first batch of 2500 new "01" mines was produced. At that time, the plant employed 1580 persons, of which 1,400 were workers. The absolute majority of the workers were women. Thanks to their dedication, work to extremely tight schedules was possible.
In December 1944, plant No. 762 received a task of special importance. By January 1945, it had to manufacture and deliver two surfacing machines to the NKVD of the USSR. The assignment was completed on time. As was revealed later, the machines were intended for laboratory No. 2 headed by Academician I. A. Kurchatov. Later that laboratory became the Institute of Atomic Energy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
POSTWAR PERIOD
The story went on. The victorious marches finished, and the country began a peaceful life. The national economy destroyed by the war needed to be restored in the shortest possible time. This required a sharp increase in the woodworking equipment production. The plant coped with this task with honor. In 1945, it was transferred to the Ministry of Mechanical and Instrument Engineering. In 1966, it was renamed Tyumen Machine-Tool Building Plant (Stankostroitel’nyi zavod) and the street where it was located was called Stankostroiteley street.
In 1948, the plant refused state subsidies and became self-financing. All resources were directed to the development of new types of products. In the first postwar years, production of a number of new types of woodworking machines was launched: screw-cutting lathes, limiters, two-saws, edging, belt-rack, and skidding winches for the timber industry.
In the fifties, the plant manufactured fundamentally new types of woodworking machines: universal circular saws and single-saws. In the sixties – multi-blade ripsaws, swing saws, single blade edging circular sawing machine, universal circular sawing machines, and others.
At the same time, the old models of machines were replaced with more advanced ones of the same type.
In the 1960s, the state program of housing construction was initiated and the plant received a state order to produce equipment for the production of carpentry items such as windows, doors, parquetry, etc. An experimental site was created, where woodworking machines and production lines as well as prototypes of new woodworking equipment were manufactured, tested and improved.
In the post-war period (from 1946 to 1990), about 60 new machine models were added to the existing product line. Having sufficient production capacities and qualified personnel, the plant produced a number of complex lines: an automatic line for hardening the seed drill discs (1971-1972), a round log production line (1983), etc. In 1965, a first batch of 5 machine-tools was produced for export. The following year their number increased to 34 units. The export volume increased steadily over the years. The peak of production came in 1975, when 230 machines were supplied for export. On average, about 120-150 machines went for export annually. The geography of deliveries was very extensive and included 28 countries. The machines intended for export were assembled at the export site.
Between 1965 and 1991, the plant exported 3445 machines. During all these years not a single reclamation was received.
The woodworking equipment produced by the plant has been repeatedly exhibited at various exhibitions, including international ones.
Machines with the Tyumen brand name have received multiple awards for high-level technical solutions and quality. The TsMR-2 machine was awarded the Honorary Diploma of the USSR Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the exhibition "Lesdrevmash-73" and the bronze medal of the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements.
In 1978, the machine TsTsK 4-3 received a Gold Medal at the International Leipzig Fair. Along with the renewal of the fleet of the produced equipment, the volumes of their production were constantly increasing. By 1975, the plant increased the output of machine-tools by 4.4 times compared with the first post-war years.
Plant workers continuously upgraded their professional qualifications taking part in training courses and seminars and visited other enterprises exchanging advanced production experience. They also participated in professional competitions.
PERIOD OF TRANSITION TO MARKET ECONOMY (after 1991)
In 1994, the plant was corporatized and transformed into the Open Joint-Stock Company Tyumen Machine-Tool Building Plant.
The transition to the market economy was a difficult period for the plant, along with the whole country. The collapse of the Soviet Union meant disintegration of a well-established mechanism of economic ties. The plant faced the task of developing new types of equipment, searching for new suppliers of components and new customers. During that time, the product range expanded. The new equipment included a four-sided longitudinal milling machine SPFN-160-4C, a circular saw for sawing logs TsMKD-28A, a universal sawing machine UPS, a circular sawing machine Ts6-3, and a universal machine SU-40. The last two were developed by the technical design department of the plant. The range of the manufactured machines allowed their grouping into various technological lines. The most complete of them was based on the machine-tool TsMKD-28L, which produced planed parts for logs as a raw material. All the machine -tools produced by the plant were certified in 1996. At the same time, the plant began manufacturing new types of products such as decorative cast iron grids, garden tools, sewage and telephone manhole covers.
Major construction works continued. In the early 1990's, new facilities were commissioned.
In 1994, the last building project was finished. The fourth aisle of the mechanic assembly shop and the garage-parking lot with amenity premises was commissioned. The reconstruction works were completed.
In the new economic situation the government was taking measures to support the machine-building industry in the country. It initiated a Federal Target Program called "Reforming and development of the machine-tool and instrumentation industry in Russia for the period till 2005". The plant was the only major manufacturer of woodworking equipment in Siberia. Therefore, it was included in the consortium of three factories "Drevmash", which was going to receive priority state support.
This inspires confidence that the plant will live in the new economic conditions, withstand all the coming upheavals and regain its strength.