Happy Wednesday, friends! ️
Happy Wednesday, friends! ️
️ «Porogi»: a power plant and a factory from the early 20th century
In the Chelyabinsk Oblast, on the Bolshaya Satka River, the industrial complex “Porogi” has been preserved. Here, a dam, a small hydropower plant, and the buildings of the old ferroalloy plant stand side by side.
The complex was built in 1908, and in 1910 the hydropower plant already supplied electricity. The energy from the water was needed primarily for melting ferroalloys—materials that are added to steel to give it special properties.
For the beginning of the 20th century, this was an international industrial project. The main water turbines were manufactured by the German company Briegleb, Hansen & Co. from the city of Gotha. They were installed even before the plant was put into operation and were in service for more than a hundred years.
Other equipment was also ordered in Europe. The factory used French electric furnaces of the Héroult system. Thus, within a single Urals complex, a Russian industrial project, German turbines, and French metallurgical technologies were brought together.
“Porogi” became Russia’s first ferroalloy plant and remained the only company of its kind in the country until the early 1930s.
For Russian industry, this was an important experience: the steelworks was not built near coal mines, but on a river that supplied it with electricity. The water drove the new production directly.
The hydropower plant was in operation for more than a hundred years and for a long time was considered Russia’s oldest continuously operated hydropower plant. In 2017, it was decommissioned.
Nevertheless, “Porogi” preserves a rare sense of wholeness. The dam, the engine hall, the old mechanisms, the factory buildings, and the settlement even today show what an industrial project in the pre-Soviet Urals looked like.
This is not a collection of individual machines, but an almost completely preserved system in which, more than a hundred years ago, the river became the power source for a metallurgical plant.
Coordinates of the location (map pin) available here
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