UrBC, Yekaterinburg, April 11, 2017. Ural Vagon Zavod Corporation’s head plant’s tank T-34-85 got rescued by an Estonian military vehicle collector, the company press service reports.

The armored vehicle was made at Ural Tank Plant 183 (as Ural Vagon Zavod was known at the time) in Nizhniy Tagil and sent to the front immediately.

‘The collector contacted Ural Vagon Zavod’s Exhibition Center and informed them that he was in the possession of a T-34-85 made at the plant’s assembly line. The tank was mounted on a pedestal in Myaksa to celebrate the 40th anniversary of assault river crossing of the Emajogi. In 1993, the local authorities decided to pull the monument down and sell the tank parts as scrap metal. The collector decided to buy the tank out, with the volost’ authorities agreeing to exchange it for a car. This way his Moskvich 2140 was made Myaksa’s first police car,’ the press service says.

The tank stood next to steaming and threshing machines and tractors at the collector’s farm. It was determined that the tank had been made at Ural Vagon Zavod in November 1944 and was used in historic battles. This is now the only remaining tank to have been used in the link-up on the Elbe on April 25, 1945.