Nizhnii Tagil Metallurgical Combine

(full name, V. I. Lenin Nizhnii Tagil Metallurgical Combine), a ferrous-metallurgy enterprise of the USSR, with a complete metallurgical cycle. It was formed in 1957 from the Novotagil Plant, which had been in operation since 1940. The combine consists of eight blast furnaces and 18 open-hearth furnaces, an oxygen-converter shop, rolling mills, refractory and by-product coke works, a heating and electric power plant, auxiliary shops, iron mines (Gora Vysokaia, Lebiazh’e, and Gora Blagodatnaia) with pelletizing-concentration and sintering plants, and a metallurgical plant that was established in 1725 and belonged to the Demidov family. Since 1956 oxygen has been used to intensify the process in the high-capacity open-hearth furnaces, which operate on natural gas.

The Nizhnii Tagil Metallurgical Combine is the basic supplier of metal for the railroads. The combine’s products include oil-quenched rails (with significantly higher wear resistance than ordinary rails); railroad-car wheels and bands; heavy sheet metal; channels, beams, and other contours; and tubing, axle, and structural stock. In 1974 the first all-purpose mill in the USSR was built for rolling wide-flange beams and columnar contours. The yearly production (1973) was as follows: cast iron, 6.28 million tons; steel, 6.43 million tons; rolled steel, 4.17 million tons.

The Nizhnii Tagil metallurgists are famous for their revolutionary traditions: mass strikes (1889 and 1905), active struggle for the establishment of Soviet power in Nizhnii Tagil, and participation in the Red Guard detachments during the Civil War and military intervention of 1918–20.

The Nizhnii Tagil Metallurgical Combine has been awarded the Order of Lenin (1966); the Order of Lenin was also awarded to the Gora Vysokaia Iron Mine (1945), and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor was awarded to the by-product coke works (1943).