Uralmash
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Uralmash (Russian: Уральский Машиностроительный завод - Уралмаш / Uralskiy Mashinostroitelny zavod, Ural Machine-building plant) is a heavy machine building plant located in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
[edit] History
The Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant (Uralmashzavod or UZTM) was put into operation in 1933 in compliance with the plans of the Government of the USSR for industrialization of the country. During the pre-war period, Uralmash manufactured its products (blast furnace equipment, sintering machines, rolling mills, presses, cranes, etc.) for the mining and metallurgical enterprises, created in the Urals and Siberia. The major part of these products was produced on the individual designs. Simultaneously the plant has developed the military equipment and at the end of thirties the plant began to manufacture howitzers M-30 of F.F. Petrov (122 mm bore) design.
During the World War II the large-scale production of armoured material was organized at the plant at first it manufactured armoured tank hulls, then tanks T-34 and gun tanks destroyers SU-122, SU-85, SU-100 on the basis of tank T-34. The self-propelled gun mounts, built at Uralmash, demonstrated their effectiveness on the battle-fields, because they successfully combined manoeuvrability of tanks T-34 with huge fire power of ordnance pieces.
After the war the state carried out considerable investments in reconstruction and expansion of Uralmash plant. This modernisation favoured both increased output and production of new machines and equipment: shovels, drilling rigs, crushers and mills.
In fifties the state began to realize the program of equipping the aviation and rocket industry with heavy hydraulic presses. In connection with this program, Uralmash created a range of various machines to satisfy completely the industry demands in this equipment.
In 1949 the plant produced the first dragline excavator. In sixties the plant designs and manufactures the draglines with booms, 90-100 m long. Now more than 200 walking draglines fuction at mines in Siberia and Far East. One third of the total coal amount produced by open casting is mined with the help of draglines.
The drilling rigs manufactured by URALMASH were of prime importance in development of oil and gas regions of the USSR, including West Siberia with its severe climate. The extradeep drilling rigs, designed and manufactured at the plant made it possible to reach the depth of 13 km (at the Kola Superdeep Borehole) and for the first time to obtain unique samples of rock, the age of which accounts more than 3 billion years. URALMASH designs also off-shore drilling equipment.
in December 1992 according to the laws of the Russian Federation URALMASH was transformed into an open-end joint stock company "The Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant". In the 90s the company almost filed for bankrupcy because of lack of government orders, when the local mafia joined in. This mafia group, also known as Uralmash after the residential area they lived in, became the biggest mafia group of Yekaterinburg after the bloody gangwars of 1992-93 (the competiting "Centrals" and traditional Vor v zakone groups lost ground in this war), and seized control over many companies including Uralmash of which they controlled the distribution channels during the directorship of Viktor Korovin. Korovin's successor Oleg Belonenko tried to reduce the influence of the mafia, but was murdered in 2000. Just 5 days before his death he won a case against the mafia (which even participated in local elections as the "Uralmash Political Union" in 1999), which forbade the mafia the use of the name "Uralmash". Uralmash changed its name to Uralmashzavod in 2005 and became part of OMZ, which became part (70%) of investors headed by Gazprombank as of February 2006.
[edit] Sports
Uralmash football club (currently FC Ural) was supported by the plant.
