UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 12, 2016. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant was founded eighty years ago today. The plant’s very first railcars came off the assembly lines on October 11, 1936, the company press service reports.

Russia’s Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy Vladimir Putin signed a decree a few days earlier to award Ural Vagon Zavod with an honorary certificate ‘for helping to strengthen the country’s defense capacity and the development of up-to-date military vehicles and weaponry’.

‘Ural Vagon Zavod is the leading rolling stock manufacturer in the 1,520-mm zone and Russia’s only tank-maker. The plant has produced over a million railcars and more than 100,000 armored vehicles in the last eighty years, thus setting an absolute world record. The company’s 10,000th innovative 12-196-02 gondola railcar left the assembly line on September 9, 2016,’ the press service says.

The legendary tanks T-34, T-54, T-55, T-72, and T-90 in their different modifications, engineering vehicles and other equipment were all designed and made at the plant. The enterprise is currently working to produce the Armata family of vehicles. The plant’s tank T-14, infantry combat vehicle T-15, and armored recovery vehicle T-16 have already proven a breakthrough in the global tank-making industry.

Ural Vagon Zavod’s head plant is now in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest machine-building giant. The corporation itself comprises some forty member enterprises, scientific research institutes, and design offices based both in Russia and abroad.