Leningrad Metal Works

Leningrad Metal Works 

(full name, Twenty-second Congress of the CPSU Leningrad Metal Works; LMZ), the leading plant in the USSR for the manufacture of high-power steam, gas, and hydraulic turbines. Founded in 1857. Toward the end of the 19th century the plant made the transition from a small private shop, working partly with handicraft methods, to the largest machine-building works in Russia, manufacturing cranes, trusses for highway and railroad bridges, floating docks, dredges, steam boilers, and naval artillery equipment. In 1907 the plant manufactured its first steam turbine, with a power rating of 200 kilowatts (kW). The workers of the Leningrad Metal Works were active in the Revolution of 1905–07 and the Great October Socialist Revolution. At the beginning of the October armed insurrection the Red Guards of the plant took over guard duties in the Vyborg district and took part in the seizure of the Mikhail Artillery Academy, the blockade of the Vladimir School, and the storming of the Winter Palace.

After the October Revolution the plant became one of the largest organizations for manufacture of turbines. The first Soviet steam turbine, with a rated power of 2 MW, and a hydraulic turbine with a rated power of 370 kW were built there in 1924. The plant made an important contribution to the implementation of Lenin’s GOELRO plan (State Commission for the Electrification of Russia), manufacturing turbines with a total rated power of 538 MW and providing almost one-third of the planned capacity.

During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), the plant’s workers filled defense orders. The design departments were evacuated to the East, where they worked on plans for a large series of high-pressure steam turbines. After the war, new shops were built and unique, high-quality specialized equipment was installed. In 1958 production of gas-turbine installations was begun. The plant now produces articles of more than 300 different models annually.

The plant’s main products are serially manufactured steam turbines with rated powers of 60, 100, 210, 300, 500, and 800 MW; gas turbine equipment with a rated power of 100 MW; and hydraulic turbines of the adjustable-blade, radial-axial, and bucket types. In 1965 the plant built hydraulic power units for the Krasnoiarsk Hydroelectric Power Plant with a rated power of 508 MW, the largest in the world. By the 100th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin (1970) the plant had produced turbines with a total rated power of 100 GW, or 60.2 percent of the total installed capacity of all power plants in the Soviet Union. The engineering design of a hydraulic turbine with a rated power of 815 MW for the Saian Hydroelectric Power Plant was completed in 1970. The plant’s designers are now working toward the creation of turbines of improved design, with a rated power of 1 GW or higher.

Turbines manufactured by the Leningrad Metal Works are of quality equal to that of the best models manufactured worldwide; in certain respects they are superior. As compared to 1924 the plant has increased the rated power of a single steam-turbine unit by a factor of 400 and of a single hydraulic turbine by a factor of 9,000. The plant’s turbines are exported to many countries and were awarded the Grand Prix for hydraulic turbines rated at 126 and 230 MW and for a steam turbine of 200 MW at the International Exhibition in Brussels (1958).

In 1962 the first school of communist labor in the USSR was established at the Leningrad Metal Works. The plant has been awarded two Orders of Lenin (1945 and 1957) and the Order of the October Revolution (1971).

IU. F. GRIGOR’EV