Kirov Plant

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Kirov Plant (disambiguation).

The Kirov Plant or Kirov Factory is a major Russian machine-building plant in St. Petersburg, Russia.

It was established in the 1860s as the Putilov Company and 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 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. In February 1917 strikes at the factory contributed to setting in motion the chain of events which led to the February Revolution.

After the Russian Revolution it was renamed "Red Putilovite Plant" (zavod "Krasny Putilovets"), famous for its manufacture of the first Soviet tractors, Fordzon-Putilovets, based on Ford's Fordson tractor. Later it was renamed the Kirov Plant, after Sergey Kirov. The Putilov Plant was famous because of its revolutionary traditions.

[edit] References

• Peter Gatrell (1994), Government, Industry, and Rearmament in Russia, 1900-1914: The Last Argument of Tsarism, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521466199.
• History of the Kirov-Putilov factory (Russian)

[edit] External link

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

Gun manufactured in Putilov factory in 1916

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

Gun manufactured in Krasny Putilovets factory in 1930