Kirov Plant

Kirov Plant

Type	Machine-building plant
Industry	Mechanical engineering
Founded	February 28, 1801 (1801-02-28)
Founder(s)	Under the decree of emperor Paul I
Headquarters	Saint Petersburg, Russia
Area served	Coast Gulf of Finland
Key people	General director George Semenenko
Products	Tractors, escalators etc

The Kirov Plant Kirov Factory or Leningrad Kirov Plant (LKZ) (Russian: Кировский Завод, tr. Kirovskiy Zavod) is a major Russian machine-building plant in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was established in 1789, then moved to its present site in 1801 as a foundry for cannon balls.

Putilov Company

In 1848 it was purchased by Putilov and named the Putilov Company; it initially produced rolling stock for railways. It boomed during the industrialization of the 1890s, with the work force quadrupling in a decade, reaching 12,400 in 1900. The factory traditionally produced goods for the Russian government and railway products accounted for more than half of its total output. Starting in 1900 it also produced artillery, eventually becoming a major supplier of it to the Imperial Russian Army alongside the state arsenals. By 1917 it grew into a giant enterprise that was by far the largest in the city of St. Petersburg.

Political unrest

In February 1917 strikes at the factory contributed to setting in motion the chain of events which led to the February Revolution. In 10 March 1919 at protest rally in the factory striking workers condemned the Bolshevik government in a resolution claiming "...the Bolshevik government is not the authority of the proletariat and peasants, but the authority of the dictatorship of the Central Committee of the Communist Party..." When Lenin came to Petrograd to give a speech on 13 March the workers demanded his resignation and when Zinoviev tried to address the workers he was greeted with shouts: "Down with the Jew!" Strikers barricaded themselves in the factory which was stormed by the Cheka to suppress the strike and about 200 workers were executed.^{[citation needed]}

Red Putilovite Plant

After the October Revolution it was renamed Red Putilovite Plant (zavod Krasny Putilovets), famous for its manufacture of the first Soviet tractors, Fordzon-Putilovets, based on the Fordson tractor. The Putilov Plant was famous because of its revolutionary traditions. In the wake of Sergey Kirov's 1934 assassination, the plant was renamed Kirov Factory No. 100.

Products

In World War II, the T-34 tank was manufactured here. Starting around 2004 the Dartz Kombat T98 luxury armored vehicle, somewhat reminiscent of the AM General Hummer, has been constructed at the Kirov site.

Factory No. 185 (S.M. Kirov)

The Kirov Plant is sometimes confused with another Leningrad heavy weapons manufactory, Factory No. 185 (S.M. Kirov).

Picture gallery

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  A 1923 Soviet stamp featured the Soviet Fordson

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  Russian locomotive class U U-127 Lenin's 4-6-0 oil burning compound locomotive, which was built at the Putilov factory, currently preserved at the Museum of the Moscow Railway at Paveletsky Rail Terminal

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  Builder's plate, steam dome and whistle of locomotive U-127

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  Gun manufactured in Putilov factory in 1916

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  Anti-aircraft 76 mm gun manufactured in Putilov factory in 1917

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  Gun manufactured in Krasny Putilovets factory in 1930

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  heavy tanks KV-2 who was built in 1940-1943

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  K-700 Kirovets tractor who was built in 1961-2000

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  K-744 Kirovets tractor who built since 1995

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  K-702 loader

See also

• Trams of Putilov plant

References

• Peter Gatrell (1994), Government, Industry, and Rearmament in Russia, 1900-1914: The Last Argument of Tsarism, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-46619-9.
• Workers Unrest and the Bolshevik Response in 1919 written by Vladimir Brovkin in Slavic Review, Volume 49, Issue 3, (Autumn 1990) page 358-361

External links

Official site: http://www.kzgroup.ru/

• Kirov Plant @ globalsecurity.org (plant's military production)