Manufacturing in Russia

In the late 1920s the Soviet government began planning the industrialization of the USSR, devoting particular attention to the geographical location of the vast industrial complexes. Initially, Soviet manufacturing enterprises in Russia were concentrated in the Moscow and Saint Petersburg areas. Simultaneously, work was begun on the electrification of areas in the Urals known to have large coal and mineral reserves, and planning began for the electrification of various Siberian regions. As economic planning progressed, and as the electric-power areas increased, huge new manufacturing complexes were installed to take maximum advantage of these natural resources. As a result, production increased in the eastern regions. This significant expansion was accomplished by developing the new eastern industrial regions, rather than by reducing the production of the older centers; indeed, the older industrial regions continued to increase their output.

Today the manufacture of transportation equipment is concentrated in central European Russia. Railroad locomotives are produced at Kolomna, Murom, and Lyudinovo, all of which are located near Moscow. Railroad cars are built in plants at Tver', northwest of Moscow, and at Bryansk, southwest of Moscow. A large railroad-car plant in the Minusinsk Basin in eastern Siberia services the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur Magistral (BAM) railroads. Subway cars are manufactured in Mytishchi, a northern suburb of Moscow; Engel's, in the Volga Valley, is the main center for manufacturing trolley buses.

The largest shipbuilding center is in Saint Petersburg on the Baltic Sea. Smaller shipyards are located in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, in Arkhangel'sk on the White Sea, and at certain ports on the Pacific coast. Most of the country's river-craft are built in the Volga-Kama River Basin. The oldest, and still the largest, river craft shipyard is located in the city of Nizhniy Novgorod; other riverboat manufacturing plants are in Moscow, Rybinsk, and Kostroma on the upper Volga River.

The motor-vehicle manufacturing industry is limited in Russia because the Soviet government gave low priority to vehicular traffic as compared with railroads and other forms of transportation; however, Russia has several large-scale automobile and truck factories. These factories produced about 85 percent of all trucks and cars manufactured in the USSR in 1990. The largest construction project in the USSR during the eighth Soviet Five-Year Plan (1966-1970) was the establishment of the Volga Motor Vehicle Plant at Tol'yatti, in eastern European Russia. This plant's capacity is about 660,000 automobiles a year; the plant, however, has been running well below capacity in recent years. Other important automobile assembly plants are in Moscow, Izhevsk, and Nizhniy Novgorod. The largest construction project during the ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-1975) was the Kama River Truck Plant in Naberezhnye Chelny. Trucks are also produced in Nizhniy Novgorod, Moscow, Simbirsk on the Volga, and Miass in the Urals.

The manufacture of agricultural machinery is a large industry in Russia. In 1990 Russia accounted for 60 percent of the total production of agricultural machinery in the USSR, which was formerly the largest producer of tractors in the world and a sizable exporter. Most of the principal producing plants are in European Russia, in Volgograd, Vladimir, Bryansk, and Lipetsk. Chelyabinsk in the Urals and Rubtsovsk in Siberia are also major production centers. Self-propelled combines and other farm machinery are produced in Rostov-na-Donu.