October 31, 2012. OAO Plant No. 9 (a member of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation) celebrated its 70th anniversary recently. The festive event was attended by over a thousand workers, long-service employees, and invited guests: Sverdlovsk Region Government officials, directors of Yekaterinburg’s largest plants, and representatives of the city council and of the city’s Ordzhonikidzevsky District council as well as head of defense enterprises based in Perm, Izhevsk, and Nizhniy Novgorod. Also, workers from Uraltransmash, Uralmashzavod, Novator, and Kalinin Plant came to congratulate the employees of Plant No. 9 on the special anniversary of the company, Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s press officer says.

The plant’s Director-General Mikhail Matviyenko said in his special address that, over its seven-decade operating history, the plant had developed over 400 development prototypes of artillery systems, 43 of which were put into service. What is more, the plant sold licenses entitling the buyers in nine different countries to manufacture some of its products.

‘Over the last six years, the plant has made an enormous leap forward and increased its production output by over five times; the wages have gone up as well. The plant no longer has any debts, and, moreover, the management is now investing heavily in technical upgrades so that a modern 21st century plant can be created here. Even though the enterprise is quite an old one, the plant keeps getting younger: the workers’ median age is decreasing, we have plenty of young blue- and white-collar workers in our departments, and the production facilities are being rapidly modernized. For one, the Chief Engineer’s center has been buying new mills and machines, and new production facilities are about to be launched in our production departments,’ Matviyenko pointed out.