The Great Victory was brought closer not only by soldiers fighting on the frontline, but also civilians working on the homefront. Those who couldn’t go to the front worked multiple shifts in factories and plants to produce tanks, aircraft, rifles, and shells for the battlefield. Victory required the unity of the entire nation.
One of the symbols of this feat was the ZIS-5 truck, based on which the legendary ‘Katyusha’ combat vehicle was created. And, of course, the iconic T-34 tank. When the war began, many industrial enterprises were quickly evacuated to Nizhny Tagil, where Ural Tank Plant No.183 was quickly formed. Adults, teenagers and children worked at the machines there while the workshops were still being built. They laboured without stopping in the open air, even when temperatures dropped to -40°C. Production was rapidly moved to an assembly line – a world first. By December 1941, the first batch of tanks had already been sent to the front. The Ural Tank Plant produced more than 25,000 T-34 tanks during the war years alone. That is more than all the factories of Central Europe working for Nazi Germany combined.
Today, veterans who fought throughout the war in those very same tanks meet with young soldiers who are fighting fascism in our own time – but now at the controls of modern T-90s. The link between the eras is unbreakable: just as our ancestors marched towards victory back then, so we march towards it today.
