This type of weapon is strongly associated with Australia. But much earlier, the peoples of Europe used the boomerang, the most ancient finds were made there. The oldest specimen - a 30,000-year-old mammoth tusk boomerang - was found in the Polish Carpathians. The oldest Australian boomerang finds are 10,000 years old.
Europeans used the boomerang for quite a long time - until the first centuries of our era. The Celts called it "flying ball", the ancient Greeks - "hare swatter". Boomerangs were distributed among the peoples of all continents. A collection of boomerangs was even found in.
Why is the boomerang now associated only with Australia? About the same story happened to him as with the papyrus, on which in ancient times they wrote throughout the Mediterranean, but only Egyptian papyri have come down to us (due to the special climate). So is the boomerang: in other places it was replaced by a bow and arrows in ancient times. And the Australian aborigines never evolved to a more advanced type of weapon, and when the Europeans arrived in Australia with cannons and guns, the locals still hunted and fought, armed with a boomerang.
Moscow Kremlin from Italy
When foreign films (especially during the Cold War) want to show that the action takes place in Russia, they always show the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral - these are symbols of Russia, recognizable all over the world.
If with regard to one of these symbols - St. Basil's Cathedral - the authorship of Italian architects has not yet been definitely established, then the Kremlin was definitely erected by Italians, who were invited in large numbers by the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan III. The most famous of the "Fryazins" (as the Italians were then called in Rus') was Aristotle Fioravanti.
The Prince's Palace in the Kremlin was made in quite a Renaissance style. , which we see today, were built from 1485 to 1516 by a team of murol architects (from the Italian mura - wall) from Italy, mainly from Milan. Therefore, the Moscow Kremlin had such a strong resemblance to Milan's Sforza castle. The very word "Kremlin" is of Italian origin, from "kremalier" ("prong"). By the way, the characteristic “dovetail” battlements of the Kremlin are an echo of the struggle in Italy between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines: it was the battlements of the Ghibelline fortresses that had the shape of a swallowtail. If among the Italian architects in Moscow there were more supporters of the Guelphs, then the Kremlin would have been with the usual rectangular teeth.
In addition to walls and towers, the Italians erected famous palaces and churches inside the Kremlin: the Assumption Cathedral, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the Faceted Chamber, the old Grand Kremlin Palace, the Archangel Cathedral, the Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist at the Borovitsky Gates and much more. The next generation of Italian murols built the fortifications of Kitay-gorod, already taking into account the increased power of firearms: its walls were thicker and lower than the Kremlin ones.
French champagne comes from Britain
Champagne, along with the Eiffel Tower, is the most recognizable symbol of France. And, of course, the French have a legend according to which this sparkling wine from Champagne was invented in 1697 by their compatriot, a Benedictine monk, Pierre Pérignon.
But the irony is that Perignon was just fighting the formation of bubbles in wine: the pressure created by the gas burst the bottles, causing destruction in the wine cellars. But even the bubbles in the surviving bottles, the French in those days considered an unfortunate drawback.
But the British just appreciated the bubbles in the wine. And the first to describe the method of champagne was the English physician and scientist Christopher Merret - in 1662. And even earlier, at the beginning of the 17th century, another Englishman, Robert Mansel, set up the production of strong bottles that could withstand gas pressure. As a result, British vintners began producing sparkling wine almost a century before Pierre Pérignon allegedly first introduced the champagne he had invented to the public.
However, it cannot be said that Perignon has nothing to do with champagne at all: when this drink clearly began to enjoy international success, the learned monk made several improvements in the production process - in particular, he began to close bottles of champagne with a cork from cork oak bark and fix it with a wire collar .
Interestingly, in Champagne, sparkling wine replaced traditional wine only by the middle of the 19th century.
Statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro from France
The monument of Christ the Redeemer towers over Rio de Janeiro and is rightfully considered a symbol of the city, and even the whole of Brazil. Moreover, he was elected one of the new seven wonders of the world.
But, like the Statue of Liberty in New York, the sculpture of Christ the Redeemer was created in France. In 1921, the authorities of Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of Brazil, decided to create a giant monument for the 100th anniversary of Brazil's independence (1822). As a result, construction was delayed until 1931. In Brazil itself, there simply was no technological capacity to implement such an ambitious project (the height of the statue is 38 meters, the arm span is 28 meters, and the weight is 1145 tons). Therefore, all the details of the sculpture, including the frame, were made in France, and then delivered disassembled to Brazil. The head and hands were created by the Frenchman of Polish origin Paul Landowski and the Romanians Gheorghe Leonida.
Since the monument is the tallest in Rio de Janeiro, it is struck by lightning several times a year.
Stalingrad Tractor Plant, originally from the USA
Contrary to the Soviet historical clichés about the young Soviet state, surrounded by a ring of bourgeois enemies, and Stalinist industrialization carried out on its own, the reality was radically different. The “ring of enemies” was invented by the Bolsheviks for internal use (the reality was far from being so homogeneous), and industrialization was carried out not even with the help of the West, but, let’s say, by the joint efforts of Western specialists (mainly Americans) and Soviet workers (mostly unskilled ).
If the well-known giants of socialist construction projects were built with the help of Western specialists (GAZ, AZLK, DneproGES, Magnitka, Uralmash, the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and hundreds of other enterprises), then the Stalingrad Tractor Plant (STZ), one of the symbols of the battle for Stalingrad, was completely built in USA.
The design of the STZ was carried out by the American company Albert Kahn Inc. the famous architect Albert Kahn (by the way, this company alone designed 571 enterprises for the USSR). The project was completed in the shortest possible time, taking into account all the wishes of the Soviet side. For example, the creation of a dual-use plant, civil (tractors) and military (), - the Americans did not build their factories like that.
Then, in 1930, the plant was built in the USA, dismantled, transported on 100 ships to the USSR and assembled under the supervision of American engineers. The machines were also Western: more than 80 American engineering companies and several German firms participated in the equipment of the plant. The plant was launched and serviced at first by 370 American specialists.
“We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We have to run this distance in 10 years. Either we do it, or we will be crushed, ”Joseph Stalin made such a statement in February 1931 at a meeting of business executives. To begin with, here is a short excerpt from an article by the well-known historian and economist Oleg Osetinsky, which briefly describes the history of Soviet industrialization: “In just 10 years (1930-1940), the Yankees created chemical, aviation, electrical, oil, mining, coal, metallurgical and other industries in the USSR , Europe's largest factories for the production of cars, tractors, aircraft engines and other products. They were built both in the USSR and in the USA. For example, the famous Stalingrad Tractor Plant was entirely built in the USA, dismantled, transported on 100 ships - and assembled in the USSR. Dneproges was built by the American company Cooper Engineering Company (and the German company Siemens). Gorky Automobile Plant was built by the American company Austin. The current AZLK was built according to the Ford project. The famous Magnitogorsk is an exact copy of the metallurgical plant in Gary, Indiana. Albert Kahn Inc designed and built 500 Soviet enterprises! It was she who created the school of advanced industrial architecture in the USSR. In short, in 10 years the Americans built about 1,500 plants and factories in the USSR! Approximately 200,000 American engineers and technicians arrived in the USSR, who led the almost one million army of Gulag prisoners - plus the few pre-revolutionary cadres remaining in Russia. During these 10 years, American professors have trained 300,000 qualified specialists at the workers' faculties - that is, all the cadres for Soviet industry for many years to come! Thus, the material base of socialism was built by the US capitalists plus the cheap labor of convicts. And - do not forget that the capitalists built the USSR with their own money - on credit! After a severe civil war that destroyed the economy of the state, the 20s of the last century were a period of complete technological savagery in the USSR. The new communist professors were extremely ignorant. The country was dying of hunger, there were no tractors, cranes, rails, pipes, and much more. A social explosion seemed inevitable, panic reigned in the leadership. As a result, Soviet industrialization can be divided into two periods. In the 1920s, the "red colossus" exploited Germany's post-war weakness. And in the 1930s - the Great Depression in the US and Britain. Germany after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 found itself in a difficult position. Germany was forbidden to have a large army and develop a military industry. The Germans went around. They began to conduct secret negotiations with the Soviet Union, and then build industrial facilities in our country. This was done by the so-called "Sondergruppa R". “The Germans are for us the only outlet through which we can study achievements in military affairs abroad,” Ieronim Uborevich, chief of armaments of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA), wrote to Stalin at that time. The Germans built factories in the USSR and placed their orders on them. Some of the planes and guns were left in Russia, and some were taken away. The next stage of industrialization can be called American In 1929, when the Great Depression in the United States became a reality, the eminent architect Albert Kahn was left without work. He was famous for building the Ford plant in Detroit. And in the 1930s he drew up a plan for industrial modernization in Russia. For several years, more than 500 factories were built in the USSR at an accelerated pace. According to some estimates, this cost the Union $2 billion (almost $250 billion at the current exchange rate). The hired American engineers did not particularly bother. They transferred ready-made plant designs from the USA and brought their own equipment. For example, the Moscow AZLK plant was modeled after Ford's assembly plants. Naturally, no one advertised the fact that foreigners are building plants and factories for us. The branch of the Albert Kahn company in Moscow bore the Soviet name - Gosproektstroy. It employed 25 American and 2,500 Soviet engineers who studied the Western science of designing and building large industrial facilities. The branch of the German company Demag in Moscow was also encrypted and was called the Central Bureau of Heavy Engineering. However, in general, a critical look at the events of industrialization shows that, in fact, there was no economic miracle. Even more, it turns out that Russia did not take advantage of the main resource of the economic "miracles" of the 20th century - the flow of labor resources from agriculture to industry. Unlike Japan and South Korea, which took advantage of it. And to a large extent, we are grateful to Stalin's propaganda, which hid from the people hundreds of thousands of people who died at the construction sites of slave labor. The Stalinist economy was inefficient, and the criteria for efficiency were different, modern economists say. From time to time, the Bolsheviks took out either the metro or the Dneproges from their sleeve and trumpeted it to the whole world, ignoring the destruction of private enterprise, the decline in living standards and hunger. Considering the huge credit investments in the USSR from abroad, the total sales of all kinds of resources from the bins of the motherland, which led to hunger and impoverishment of the population, http://fakeoff.org/history/mif-ob-industrializatsiihttp://fakeoff.org/history/mif-ob-industrializatsiimodern Historians studying the period of industrialization note that the economy was not so wonderful. Production indicators were estimated, which did not take into account the decrease in the same consumption indicators in the state. The economic growth during Stalin's industrialization is just a return to a long-term trend of smooth economic growth that existed both before and after Stalin, after the failure caused by collectivization. Thoughts about this come from reading Great War, Civil War, and Recovery: Russia’s National Income, 1913 to 1928. Its authors Andrei Markevich (NES) and Mark Harrison (University of Warwick) received the National Prize in Applied Economics for which they received the National Prize in Applied Economics. ". By 1940, the USSR ranked second in the world in terms of industrial output, second only to the United States. With the help of foreign engineers, more than 2 million Soviet specialists were trained and mastered new technologies. At the same time, the population of the state decreased by 10 million, according to the most minimal estimates, from premature deaths. Viktor Shevchuk.
Stalingrad Tractor Plant June 17, 1930 Stalingrad Tractor Plant. F.E. Dzerzhinsky gave the country the first products - the STZ-1 wheeled tractor rolled off the assembly line. The Stalingrad Tractor Plant is an integral part of the domestic tank building.
Production reached its design capacity on April 20, 1932: since that time, the conveyor has produced 144 wheeled vehicles per day. The decision to build a tractor plant was made by the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR in 1926. Stalingrad was chosen as the place for the construction of the enterprise: a suitable site for construction was found 14 km from the city center. It was the flagship of the country of the Soviets - the first tractor plant in the USSR. At the request of the workers, the enterprise was named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky. The Central Executive Committee of the USSR granted this request.
The laying of the enterprise took place on July 12, 1926. The plant was built in record time - it took only 11 months. The design and equipment of the plant was carried out by invited American engineers. Even at the design and construction stage, they wondered why the customer required an excess margin of safety for crane structures. The planned production of tractors weighing about 5 tons did not need cranes capable of lifting and moving structures weighing 40-50 tons. Apparently, experts from the United States reasonably reasoned that a tractor plant should produce tractors: tanks would be built at a tank building enterprise. In addition, excess capacity put into production leads to low profitability of the enterprise. The leadership of the country, based on the inevitability of a large-scale military conflict, laid in domestic plants and factories the possibility of a quick transition to the production of military products.
So, pasta factories could be transferred to the production of artillery gunpowder, and cigarette factories - to the production of cartridges. From the middle of summer 1937, the Stalingrad Tractor Plant began production of caterpillar tractors ASHTZ-NATI (STZ-3). In November of the same year, on the basis of a new caterpillar tractor, the production of the STZ-5-NATI artillery tractor (STZ-NATI 2TV) was launched. By June 17, 1940, 25,000 caterpillar tractors had been produced. At the World Industrial Exhibition in Paris in 1938, the ASKhTZ-NATI tractor received the highest award - the Grand Prix. The Stalingrad Tractor Plant is also an integral part of the domestic tank building. Work in this area was started at STZ in 1932, when a special design and experimental department (SpetsKEO) was created within its walls, headed by N.D. Werner. This department prepared documentation for serial production of T-26 tanks.
The plant and the surrounding area during the Battle of Stalingrad. Filming of the Luftwaffe October 17, 1942 The next machine mastered by the STZ was the KV-1. In addition to this heavy tank, in 1940 the order was received to organize mass production of T-34-76 medium tanks and V-2 engines. The Stalingraders were able to start production in January 1941. In addition to the V-2 diesel engines, the M-17 carburetor engines were also produced at the Stalingrad Tractor Plant. After the start of World War II, STZ continued to produce T-34-76 and KV-1 tanks, as well as STZ-5-NATI artillery tractors, remaining one of the main suppliers of military equipment for the Soviet-German front. In connection with the evacuation of enterprises in the European part of the USSR, the plant had to start independent production of all components. The approach of hostilities, and subsequently the fighting that began on the outskirts of the city, could not stop production: the tanks of the Stalingrad Tank Plant went into battle straight from the assembly line. Often behind the levers of combat vehicles sat working enterprises who knew their T-34s and KV-1s thoroughly. So, the breakthrough of the Wehrmacht units to Stalingrad on August 23, 1942, when the Germans tried to capture the city with a blow along the river from the north, was failed, since the attack was repulsed by a brigade of the workers' militia of the STZ. The unit was headed by the process engineer of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant Nikolai Leontievich Vychugov.
Actually, I planned to date a post about the life and work of the Youth Parliament of the Volgograd Region by June 1, but the kindergarten - later, because the topic of the liquidation of the tractor plant appeared on the information field of the region.
Of course, now many people are talking about the economic component of the loss (although, why in the singular - with the industry in the out region: every month there, the closure is almost a trend) or, how vsem_kerdyk
, write on the topic "YURA, SORRY, WE ARE EVERYTHING ... ARE"
I will go the other way. By virtue of her activities, she repeatedly applied to the territory of the Traktorozavodsky district. Moreover, I recently finished writing an article about the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky near the walls of the tractor factory. In the course of collecting material, she also accumulated the history of the area.
Today we know how the history of VGTZ ended (although - what if this is not the end?). Let's remember how it all began.
If we talk about the territory of the entire Traktorozavodsky district, as the area on which the tractor plant is located, then its history dates back to the first half of the 19th century, when the settlements of Spartanovka and Rynok appeared in the vicinity of the current area. Our plant was built exactly between the village. Market and Stalingrad.
What are these places?
Rynok village in 1911 in numbers. There were 189 households [households - ?], 1136 inhabitants (assigned), of which 571 were men, 565 were women. In addition, at the same time, the population "living within ... settled ... society, but not assigned to this society" was taken into account, namely, 25 people, of which 12 were men and 13 were women. The amount of sowing is 1632 acres, while for 100 acres of sowing there are 48.0 acres for rye, 41.3 for wheat, 0.4 for oats, and 3.0 for millet; 1 farm accounts for 8.6 acres of crops; according to statistics, there are 1402 horses, 199 bulls, dairy cattle - 207 cows, gulev cattle (calves, foals, bulls) - 269, small cattle (sheep, pigs) - 697 heads. In addition, agricultural implements are among the indicators: 167 iron plows, 33 reapers, 73 winnowers .
Here is such a settlement and, perhaps, we will return to the plant.
When they talk about the history of the construction of the plant, they often talk about the wasteland at its location. So, according to the memoirs of the builders of the enterprise, "in 1927, the current territory of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant was a desert, completely covered with wormwood". Other natives recalled the village of Zhurkovka, located on the right side of the mouth of the Wet Mechetka, whose population was engaged in fishing: "and all around was the steppe, scorched by the sun, covered with a small, prickly overgrowth of wild grasses, turned brown from the heat". In addition, it is worth mentioning the absence of a plant construction zone in the Stalingrad scheme for 1925.
However, photographs are more eloquent than all words and, of course, we cannot but show the first photo of the future giant. 
On January 19, 1925, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), none other than Felix Dzerzhinsky came up with the idea of building a specialized tractor plant in the Soviet Union. It was this performance that served as the impetus for the start of the construction of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.
But - in order. 1925 A mythical plant, the purpose of which was to implement one of the precepts of Ilyich - "100 thousand tractors".
So, the idea was voiced, and already on September 8, 1925, the Borba newspaper reports that "a group of engineers arrived in Stalingrad from Moscow to clarify the issue of tractor construction in Stalingrad. The project includes the construction of a new tractor plant or the use of the Barrikady mechanical plant for tractor construction. The issue is being considered jointly with the GSNKh". By the way, at that time there was a question of choosing a construction site. When it took place, 7-9 largest cities of the country were discussed (including Rostov-on-Don, Kharkov, Voronezh), three were studied especially carefully: Stalingrad, Taganrog and Stalino.
When choosing a place, a specially created commission also relies on the recommendations of Felix Dzerzhinsky. In one of the reports, the "knight of the revolution" says that new factories should be built "closer to raw materials", but he also talks about the importance of other elements: cheap communications, waterways, cheap energy, both fuel and electricity, climatic conditions, etc.
A special commission arrives in Stalingrad to survey the territories. Based on the results of these events (including a survey of the Barrikady plant), after a week of stay, a verdict was issued in the form of a preliminary positive decision in favor of choosing Stalingrad as a site for the construction of a specialized plant. By September 15, 1925, the commission, having completed the survey of the city, makes a decision that "The preliminary plan adopted by the board of Glavmetal provides for the construction of a tractor plant in Stalingrad with a capacity of 10,000 tractors per year ..."
For the construction of the plant, a plot of land was allocated 12 km from Stalingrad on the banks of the Volga, next to the Barrikady machine-building plant. The entire area of the plant and workers' settlements is 500 hectares, of which about 130 hectares are allocated for the future plant. Two workers' settlements are located from the southeast and northwest: the lower one is on the banks of the Volga and the upper one is along the Mokraya Mechetka River. The future plant has its own pier on the shore; it is connected to the city by a railway and a tram line.
We will not write a lot of letters, just summarize: the site for the construction of the plant outside the city was not chosen by chance: a favorable economic and geographical position played an important role here. The presence of the Krasny Oktyabr (iron supplier), Barrikada (as a source of utility facilities), as well as developed railway lines and the convenience of supplying the future plant with oil and Ural pig iron - these are the factors that played a role.
When talking about the history of the construction of the plant, Americans are often mentioned. The "seven-thousanders" are less often remembered, although their contribution is also invaluable. Perhaps this topic deserves a separate post.
I will write about the role of the country of Freedom in only one way, a small fact from the history of the construction of the giant.
In addition to the fact that American specialists were the authors of the first projects of the plant, the fact that Soviet specialists traveled to America is rarely mentioned. At the head of the trip is the head of construction, V.I. Ivanov, who visits factories, adopting some details of their work.
In the book "People of the Stalingrad Tractor" Ivanov recalls: "I brought the idea of landscaping from America
. Cleanliness makes the worker look back at himself. You look at the Ford driver when his locomotive leaves the depot. He himself will certainly dress cleaner, and his hand involuntarily strokes the polished, shiny parts of the locomotive. I fought to move the train stop away from our office and to build a dense alley. Let our worker walk through the greenery in the morning and breathe fresh air. This is more useful for him than running from a stuffy car to the workshop. I thought about people, but I also fought for greenery in order to save precise, rich machine tools from fine dust that rushes through the windows of workshops in the summer, penetrates into stamps, into the working parts of machine tools and wears out equipment more than emery ".
Perhaps a couple of lines, but they make a lot of sense.
July 12, 1926 at 18 o'clock on the northern outskirts of Stalingrad, on the banks of the Volga, a solemn laying of the first tractor plant in the USSR took place. 
Felix Dzerzhinsky dies on July 20, 1926 in Moscow. In response to a message about his death, the directors of factories and enterprises of Stalingrad petition the presidium of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR "on renaming the first tractor plant in the Union - "named after Comrade Dzerzhinsky". So, already at the zero stage of construction, the plant bears the name of Iron Felix.
A few months later, in November 1926, the question of speeding up the construction of the plant was raised. In subsequent years, the deadlines for the completion of the "construction of the century" were repeatedly postponed: on February 28, 1929, the bureau of the Lower Volga Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution on measures to implement the construction plan, the completion date was set: April 1, 1931. However, in July 1929, a new the date is the end of 1930. The date is later specified - June 15, 1930.
On the eve of the solemn event, on June 11, 1930, the bureau of the Stalingrad Party Committee decided: “Considering it highly desirable that representatives of the regional party conference be present at the start-up of the Dzerzhinsky Tractor Plant, which is impossible earlier than June 17, the date for the start-up of the plant is postponed to June 17. At the same time, take into account Comrade Ivanov’s statement that the number of tractors produced, from postponing June 15 to 17, by the time the XVI Party Congress opens, it will not be reduced compared to the original outlines ".
The ceremonial launch of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant - the first in the Soviet Union specialized in tractor building - took place June 17, 1930.
Already on June 26 of the same year, the settlement of the Tractor Plant of Stalingrad was organized - the event dates back to the drawing up of the conclusion of the commission to examine the layout of the future factory settlement. In the place where a few years ago there was a wasteland and palyn grew - from scratch - a village developed, practically a city.
Today we are seeing what we are seeing.
We live in a sad time.
It can be summed up in three words. IT WILL NOT BE EASY.
