RP78TFR
Tatarstan - frontu

The film factory named after. Kuibyshev (ACCORDING to Tasma) switched to the production of new types of aviation film. The Sickle and Hammer plant has mastered the production of metal-cutting machines. Large military orders were received by factories of artificial leather, catgut, typewriters.

The fur factory has started the production of hats, earflaps, mittens, boots, headsets for soldiers.

The Spartak plant has mastered the production of army shoes. A special page of the war years of Tatarstan is the evacuation to its territory of about 70 large enterprises from Ukraine and Belarus, the Baltic States, Leningrad and Moscow, Voronezh, Kharkov and other regions of the country.

In a short time, all the evacuated enterprises were put into operation. Among them are such leading ones as the Gorbunov plant (the 22nd plant), aircraft instrument-making, engine-building and others. Mass production of military products has begun.

Over the years, the 22nd Aviation Plant has produced more than 10 thousand famous Pe-2 dive bombers. They were the main striking power of bomber aviation until 1943.

Every sixth combat aircraft launched during the war received a ticket to the sky in Kazan.

In Kazan, strategic bombers Pe-8 were produced, which were ahead of the best examples of aircraft of this class in all the belligerent armies at that time.

The creator of the Pe-2, Pe-8 bombers, Vladimir Petlyakov, was the chief designer of the 22nd plant until his tragic death in early 1942.

There was a design bureau in our city, where the geniuses of design thought Sergey Korolev, Andrey Tupolev, Valentin Glushko worked as a "special agent".

In 1943-44, Sergei Korolev, the chief designer of a group of jet installations, together with Valentin Glushko created an accelerator for the Pe-2 aircraft. About a dozen enterprises of Kazan participated in the creation of various components for the famous "Katyusha". Only the powder factory sent a million charges to the front for them.

Shells and fuses, cartridges and bombs, aviation devices and parachutes, landing craft, armored boats and armored trains, communications equipment, uniforms and shoes - in total, over 600 items of products that meet the needs of the front were produced by Tatarstan in those legendary years.

Despite all the difficulties of wartime, railway workers and rivermen of the republic worked clearly, providing transportation of goods for the front and rear.

For exemplary performance of state tasks for the front, the leading collectives of large enterprises were awarded the Orders of Lenin. Among them is the aviation plant named after. Gorbunova, a motor-building plant, a fur factory, a flax factory, a shoe factory "Spartak". The film factory was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. More than 4,200 Home guardsmen - strikers of the republic's industry were awarded orders and medals of the Soviet Union.

Kazan labor collectives have won the Red Banners of the State Defense Committee 144 times.

Tens of thousands of evacuated citizens have found their second home in Kazan. Its population, compared with the pre-war level, had already increased from 401 to 515 thousand people by the spring of 1942. Residents of the city warmly and cordially welcomed Ukrainians and Belarusians, Estonians and Latvians, citizens of other nationalities. We shared housing and food with them.

The situation in the agriculture of the republic was extremely difficult. The entire male population of military age was mobilized into the army. For the needs of the war, especially in its first year, the few tractors and cars that were available on farms were sent. By the end of 1941, only one car out of ten remained in the collective farms, state farms, MTS of Tatarstan, and the number of horses - the main draft force of the village - sharply decreased. Plans for the delivery of agricultural products and their unscheduled withdrawals have reduced wages to a minimum.

But even in these severe conditions of malnutrition, backbreaking labor, and enormous moral hardships, the village of Tatarstan supplied bread, milk, meat, and potatoes from its meager resources to the front.

Agriculture of the republic gave the front 131 million pounds of bread, 39 million pounds of potatoes and vegetables, 56 million pounds of meat, 200 million liters of milk.

Those who lived in the countryside at that time know what it cost. In the thaw and summer heat, under the autumn rains, the workers of the long-suffering village plowed, sowed and harvested. We spent sleepless nights on farms, felled trees in logging, worked half-starved, but fed the soldiers. Having no light in the houses, they knitted wool socks and mittens for them at night, leaving the warmth of their soul in each bundle.