Today, 9 May, Petersburg Plant of Precision Alloys marks Victory Day. For the enterprise this day is not merely a holiday — it is a time to remember the severe trials that fell to our city and plant during the Great Patriotic War.
Already in the first days of the war, 706 people from the V. M. Molotov Steel-Rolling Wire and Rope Plant enlisted in the people’s militia battalion, including 162 Communists (35% of the party organization). Many workers, engineers, and technicians went to the front.
Within days the Vasileostrovsky Rifle Division was formed. Metallurgists of the Steel-Rolling Plant, Baltic shipbuilders, Sevkabel cable workers, Pneumatika machine builders, students and teachers of Leningrad University, the Mining Institute, and the Academy of Arts went with weapons to defend their city.
Labor veterans returning to the machines replaced those who left for the front. Workers’ wives and sisters began helping at the plant. Production did not stop.
At the end of August the last railway branch linking Leningrad with the country was cut. Evacuation of equipment, population, food, fuel, and ammunition ceased. Heavy guns began shelling the city. On 10 September the Vasileostrovsky district and the plant suffered the first bombing. Self-defense detachments were created at plants, in homes, and institutions. They also operated at the Steel-Rolling Plant.
The harsh winter of 1941–1942 set in. Fuel and food stocks were running out. Under the leadership of the Leningrad party organization the Road of Life was created — first a water and then an ice route along Lake Ladoga that connected our city with the mainland. The Nazis did everything to disrupt this vital artery: they bombed truck columns and shelled food and ammunition unloading bases. The 225th Separate Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion took part in defending the Road of Life; a large group of Steel-Rolling Plant workers served in it. After the war they all returned to the plant.
In spring 1942 air raids on the city intensified. Three shells hit the spring shop, then ten more, and on winter days at −28°C the young women worked in the open air. However hard it was, optimism never left them. They believed a day would come when enemy planes would no longer fly over our land and peace would return. Neither hunger, cold, bombing, nor artillery shelling could shake their faith. Their names entered plant history. Photos of the young women can be seen today in the plant museum.
Today, amid a complex geopolitical situation, Petersburg Plant of Precision Alloys actively pursues import substitution and produces precision alloys the country needs:
The enterprise also has a research center where new high-quality materials and production technologies are developed. For questions about the enterprise and cooperation with the PZPS R&D center, call +7 (812) 740-76-55 or leave a request on the website. Our specialists will contact you and answer all questions in detail.
