Molotov (Perm)

The Stalin Molotov Plant No. 19

The plant was built in Perm in 1931-1934. During the Great Patriotic War, the enterprise produced AШ-82 and АШ-62ИР aircraft engines, which were installed on fighters, bombers and military transport aircraft of the USSR Air Force. Some of the equipment used at the plant was from the evacuated aviation enterprises from Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. By 1945, the Stalin Molotov Plant No. 19 was producing more than 500 engines per month. During the years of the Great Patriotic War, the Stalin Molotov Plant No. 19 produced about 20% of all aircraft engines for the Red Army Air Force.

During the Great Patriotic War, the plant regularly held campaigns to collect gifts and funds to help the front. In 1943, the workers of the Stalin Molotov Plant No. 19 collected 1,800,000 rubles for the construction of the Stalinets aviation squadron.

During the war period, the enterprise received the Challenge Red Banner of the State Defense Committee 19 times, which in 1945 was left to hang in perpetuity. In 1945, for successful work on the manufacture of aircraft engines, the Stalin Molotov Plant No. 19 was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Most of the employees were also given state government awards for their work during the war, and the chief designer of the plant Arkadiy Shvetsov in 1942 was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

The directors of the Stalin Molotov Plant No. 19 during the Great Patriotic War were G.V. Kozhevnikov and Anatoly Soldatov.

Chief Designer of the Stalin Molotov Plant No. 19 during the Great Patriotic War was Arkadiy Shvetsov.

Chief Engineer of the Stalin Molotov Plant No. 19 during the Great Patriotic War was Viktor Butusov.

Personal Stories

A Jar of Jam

On November 14, 1944, the office of Major General Anatoly Soldatov, the Director of Engine-Building Plant No. 19, was crowded. Fifty-two teenage workers who had exceeded the production plan had been invited to a meeting with the Director. Anatoly Soldatov made a speech, the children were treated to tea, and as a prize they were awarded a pair of felt boots and a jar of preserves, later called jam or compote. The guys sitting with jars of jam in front of the Director at a large table were captured by the factory photographer Matvey Kuznetsov, thereby preserving this story for future generations.

In December 1944, the Director gathered another 95 teenagers, who had exceeded the plan by 120-150 percent. Among them were metalworkers, lathe operators, supervisors, electricians and other young workers. All were also presented with jars of jam and felt boots.

Most of the teenagers who worked at Stalin Plant No.19 were only 14-16 years old, and sometimes they did extra jobs from the age of 11. In total, during the war years, about 8,000 young workers worked at this plant; in some workshops they made up 80% of the team. Many of them received employment record books (official personal documents recording the employment status of its owner over time) much earlier than passports. And they had to stand on wooden boxes so they could reach the machines.

Many children were malnourished and wore worn-out clothes. Therefore, the felt boots and a jar of jam were even more valuable than awards of cash. In addition to the famous photo, the story of the teenage workers being rewarded by Director of the plant Soldatov, was told by the poet Vladimir Radkevich in the poem "The Ballad of a Jam Jar":

Why did you, the war, steal childhood from the boys -
And the blue sky and the smell of a simple flower?
The boys of the Urals came to the factories to work,
They set up boxes for them to reach the machines.

And here in the incorruptible winter of wartime,
In the cold dawn over the Kama river,
The director gathered the best workers,
The workers who were only fourteen years old.

Harsh time looked into the tired faces,
But everyone found the pre-war childhood within
Once the work bonus - a jar of jam -
Was put on the table before the boys.

And drifting over the plant, over the forest dozing in the snow,
In the midst of the silence that suddenly filled hearts,
It smelled of something long forgotten - home,
As if there were no more war in the world.

Ah, a jar of jam, a simple and sure remedy
НReminding us that, no matter how grim life is for people,
The boys will one day have the sun and childhood,
And the blue sky, and the smell of a simple flower!

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Rossiyskaya Gazeta - Nedelya". 04.02.2010 No. 23 (5102). "A Jar of jam"

"TVNZ". 11/14/2019 "The story of one photograph: the famous picture" Jar of Jam "celebrates 75 years.

Radkevich V.I. Anthology of fiction about the Great Patriotic War. In 12 volumes. T. 9. Everything for the Front / Comp. by E. Ionov. - M., 1985 .-- S. 448.

Personal Stories

The Story of Teenage Girls at the Stalin Plant

In the summer of 1944, the youngest worker, a 10-year-old Zoya Alikina, began to work at the Stalin Engine-Building Plant No.19. Her father was killed in the war, and her mother died of illness in 1942. Before her death, she gave her daughter a doll, which Zoya did not part with, even when she went to work. At the plant she was hired to work as a delivery girl in the 10th workshop. The girl was small and thin. While she was looking for the building of her workshop, the adults lifted her up so that she could look into the windows to recognize it. Having looked at the little girl, the foreman wanted to send her to an orphanage, but Zoya said that she would rather die than go there. She was allowed to work at the plant.

At work, the girl was so tired that she did not even have the strength to wash. She came home and slept from shift to shift. Once her favorite doll disappeared, and the girl cried a lot. The foreman offered to buy another one, 20 times better. But Zoya said she did not need another doll, because that one was a gift from her mother. Since then, after the war, she has been given a doll each year on Victory Day.

The teenagers came to the plant for different reasons, each of them had their own story. Young people were recruited to the factories from all over the country. Aleksandra Belyaeva lived and studied in the Vologda region. 30 kilometers from the village to the station, mothers accompanied their children to the train station. Someone said that in the distant Urals, winter is 12 months a year.

During the war, Zinaida Generalova studied at a vocational school at the Stalin Engine-Building Plant No.19. As she recalls, the girls lived in rooms for 14-15, and sometimes 20-25 people. They had only beds and bedside tables. Boys lived in the neighboring wooden barracks. The harsh times helped them become close together, they behaved decently, did not swear, did not bully, were well brought-up.

During the war, children of different destinies were gathered in “yungorodok” - accommodation settlements for young people. The life of Zoya Khanova, who came to the plant from the village of Karagai, turned out to be difficult. They did not want to let her go from the collective farm as she was a tractor driver, but living with her stepmother was not sweet. Even today it is hard for her to remember those years when in her own home she did not feel at home. The plant helped - at first she was admitted to workshop No. 34, but not for long: there she was supposed to carry pistons weighing 16 kilograms each. Then Zoya was transferred to workshop No. 36 producing small and medium parts, where she worked until her retirement.

Zoya recalls that during the war they worked seven days a week, without days off, from 12 to 24 hours, at night they desperately wanted to sleep. To cheer up, she did several circles around the shop. Hands froze to the machine because of cold weather. They lacked literally everything - warmth, sleep, food, clothing. They wore sweatshirts and short pants, instead of shoes they were given "pieces of wood" - sandals with wooden soles and a canvas top.

In those "pieces of wood" Zoya once went home to Karagai. Her shoes got wet so she had to take them off and go barefoot. And then her jacket was stolen. She traded her ration card for a boy's coat, and wore it for a very long time. There was almost nothing to eat, they were bloated from hunger. At the plant, workers were given 700 grams of bread a day and stew. In large bottles in the corridors of the “yungorodok” there was an infusion drink from fir trees, but young people did not like its taste - it was bitter, albeit rich in vitamins.

Yungorodok of the Engine-Building Plant took the place of home and family for the teenagers, where they made first friends, met their first love, it became a ticket to adulthood.

The documentary “I remember. Yungorodok".

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Plants of the Perm Region

 Nytva  Molotov (Perm) Solikamsk