Industrial Development in Tyumen in the XIXth century

Since the second half of the XIXth and by the beginning of the XXth century Tyumen had aquired some features of a large industrial center. It held the first position in the Tobolsk region by the production amount. Well developed were leather-processing, flour-grinding, vine distilling, wood processing, tallow-melting, candle and bell manufacturing. In 1860 the Kolmakov brothers started up a leather-processing plant that later became the largest in Siberia. In 1960 one of the largest and well-fitted mills was built by A. Tekutjev. Its annual capacity exceeded one million poods of grain (* pood is an old Russian weight measure equal to 16,38 kg). In 1900 a steel foundry of Nikolai Masharov was put into operation. It produced mill turbines, as well as a wide range of household and decorative items. The foundry gave birth to the Tyumen mashine-tool, one of the biggest manufacturing companies in Tyumen.

In the second half of the XIXth century Tyumen became recognized as the largest ship-building center. In 1845 the first Siberian ship “Osnova (Foundation) was built, which belonged to the court councilor N. Poklevski-Kozell. In 1860 a ship-building plant was started up by the brothers Gullet, English manufacturers who had got famous for having built ship-yards in the towns of Kungur, Perm, and Ekaterinbourg. The products of the Gullets’ plant were of varied type. They first in Siberia built a passenger ship “Kormilets” (a Bread-winner). The Gullets’ ships sailed along almost all Siberian rivers.

In 1864 in the suburban Mys village, the merchant I. Ignatov started up a ship-building plant – at that time the largest from Volga to the Okhotsk sea. A number of unique advanced technologies were applied at the plant. For the first time in Tyumen’s history the plant got electrified. A public college was built at the territory of the plant for preparing qualified professionals. Since 1871 till 1915, over 115 large vessels produced by the Ignatov’s plant had been launched, as well as a large number of barges and boats. In 1875 Ignatov organized a steam-navigation of his own, which became the largest in the Western Siberia. The third ship-building plant was owned by the English citizenships Vardroppers. On the whole 191 steam ships were navigated in the Ob-Irtysh basin by the year 1913 , and out of this number 135 ships had been made in Tyumen.

Industrial development in Tyumen in the second half of the XIXth and at the beginning of the XXth centuries clearly gave evidence that the merchants, apart from a traditional trade business, payed a lot of attention to developing local industries. The other characteristic trend was that immense commercial potentials of Tyumen began to attract large businessmen from the Urals, from the Central Russia and Europe. All this contributed a lot to introducing up-to-date technologies and management patterns into local industries.