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Uralmashzavod has become a pilgrimage spot for tourists, scientists and journalists from China. Its museum has an autograph of Mao Zedong, as well as hundreds of photographs and artifacts devoted to the friendship between the Soviet factory and several Chinese enterprises.
The plant’s cooperation with China began shortly after World War II. China became the first country that Uralmash began to transfer its experience, equipment and technical documentation to. On many occasions, this was done free of cost.
The plant participated in the creation of heavy machine-building plants in Fula'erji in the province of Heilongjiang, Taiyuan in the province of Shanxi, and Shengyang in the province of Liaoning.
The Wuhan and Anshan iron and steel works, the Harbin steam boiler plant and the steam locomotive factory in Dalian as well as many Beijing enterprises were equipped with Uralmash machines.
In the 1950s, hundreds of Uralmashzavod's engineers and designers worked on the largest metallurgical and machine-building enterprises of China, while Chinese workers and specialists were trained at Uralmashzavod's workshops and departments.
Sergei Ageyev, a researcher of the Museum of History of Uralmashzavod, lived as a child in China in the 1960s. His father, an Uralmash engineer, helped the Chinese build a heavy machine-building plant in Qiqihar, the second largest city in the Heilongjiang province.
“That first plant was a copy of Uralmashzavod at that time,” Ageyev told RBTH. “Our specialists didn’t just transfer a huge number of technical documents, drawings, technology and products to China for free, but also helped them in the construction of factories. Before its cooperation with the USSR, China had virtually no modern heavy industry, heavy machine building and metallurgy. We helped them create these industries.”
Uralmashzavod's Chinese section displays hundreds of photos, documenting Chinese workers at steel plants and heavy industry factories in China. Some images show workers holding old banners with slogans of Soviet-Chinese friendship.
Enjoying pride of place in the museum is an autograph of Mao Zedong, which the Chairman of the People's Republic of China left in the guestbook during a visit to Uralmashzavod in 1950.
Today, the once powerful Soviet “plant of plants” and its erstwhile Chinese partners talk about reviving the partnership.
However, despite the fact that Uralmash could help China reconstruct the iron and steel works that were built in the 1950s, it’s mostly tourists who visit the plant, which is considered a part of Chinese history.
“Many Chinese people know about the country’s cooperation with Uralmashzavod in the mid-20th century and come to the plant to see it with their own eyes,” Tian Yongsang, the Consul General of China in Yekaterinburg, told RBTH. “It is good that my countrymen are interested. It is useful to enhance the cooperation between Uralmash and China for the implementation of joint cultural, historical projects.”
