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Russian Historical and Cultural Heritage Monuments photo stories

PHOTO STORY Old Demidovsky Plant Eco-Industrial Technopark, 2022

I had been planning a visit to this factory museum in Nizhny Tagil for a long time. So, during my last trip to the Sverdlovsk region in August 2022, I realized this desire.

I visited the places where I was born and grew up in the Sverdlovsk region. One of the places where I wanted to go is the former Demidovsky Metallurgical Plant. Today it is a factory museum of the history of mining machinery. It is known that Demidov manufacturers had more than 30 metallurgical plants in the Urals.

When I was working as a photojournalist for a regional youth newspaper, I happened to take pictures at one of the operating metallurgical plants in Nizhny Salda. Before the revolution, this plant was owned by the Demidovs. I also visited the Demidovs’ former “office” in Nevyansk, where I saw the famous Nevyanskaya Tower.

It is known that 40 percent of all Russian cast iron was then smelted at Demidov private factories. There is an “old sable”, famous brand of Demidovsky cast iron. This labeled cast iron sold very well in developed European countries. It was readily bought by the owners of large European factories and plants for the needs of their industries. One can imagine with what difficulty such cast iron travelled on trading barges to Great Britain, for example, or to Germany along the rivers Chusovaya, Kama, Volga, Volkhov, Neva and through the Gulf of Finland, through Saint Petersburg, continued to travel in the Baltic Sea to the destination country.

What does Wikipedia say about this industrial heritage site?

The Nizhny Tagil Ironworks, which is in my pictures, was founded in 1725 by the Demidov dynasty. The plant included a full technological cycle of metal smelting – preparation of iron ore, charcoal, smelting of cast iron, iron and copper. The maintenance and repair services, brickworks and sawmills that serviced the plant also worked here. The plant was one of the largest in Europe and operated until October 1987, when it was solemnly shut down. The symbolic keys to the old plant were handed over to the Nizhny Tagil Museum-Preserve of the Mining Industry of the Middle Urals.

STARAYA LADOGA – THE FIRST CAPITAL OF ANCIENT RUSSIA PHOTO STORY, 2023

The village of Staraya Ladoga is located in the Leningrad region, 110 kilometers from Saint Petersburg.

The village is located on the Volkhov River, the same one that flows into Lake Ladoga and which served in its time as one of the important waterways of the northern branch of the famous Hanseatic trade route.

Historians connect Staraya Ladoga and the Staraya Ladoga fortress, which was built a little later in the early days of Ancient Russia. It is claimed that it was here where Rurik ruled for the first two years, who was called by the Slavic tribes to rule them. That is why Staraya Ladoga is called the first capital of Ancient Russia.