Plant No. 217 - Geofizika JSC
On August 31, 1917, Th. Shvabe JSC was reorganized into Geofizika JSC. The capital assets of the company equalled 2,500,000 rubles. The material strength of Geofizika JSC and its skillful management allowed the company to survive the hard revolutionary times. In late 1919, the company was nationalized, and the primary specialization of the plant became geodesic instruments and microscopes.
The authority in the sphere of medical tools and instruments that Theodor Shvabe brought his company played an important role for the reputation of the Geofizika plant - it was considered one of the best factories in Russia for the quality of its medical products.
In the 1930s, the Geofizika plant became a training center for specialists in the optical mechanics industry, and the company established a technical college and a large training school. The authority of the specialists of the plant was very high at that time, their opinion and estimates were highly valued, therefore Geofizika's best workers, mechanics, engineers, and designers were regularly on long-term business trips as consultants and advisers at the construction of new optical works. The rapid development of the optical mechanics production works in Sergiev Posad and Krasnogorsk was largely due to the assistance of the plant from Stromynka street.
Among the remarkable dates in the history of Russian and Soviet optical companies, the year of 1934 occupies a special place, when the Chelyuskin steamship was icebound in the Chukchi Sea. The crew and passengers disembarked onto the ice and were waiting for rescue. The Chelyuskintsy (this is what the crew and passengers were called by the whole country) remembered the day when in the sky they heard the sound of aircraft and saw pilots drop bags with warm clothes, food and medicines in a targeted way.
A significant contribution to the rescue of these people was made by the workers and engineers of the Geofizika plant, who received an order to urgently produce a batch of the OPB 1M optical bomb sights. It was the products of this plant that helped the pilots precisely target parcels from the continent. In autumn 1934, the pilots who saved the Chelyuskin expedition visited the Geofizika plant. The operation of the sight in severe Arctic conditions was praised by the aviators.
In the 1960s, Plant No. 217 also commenced active participation in space exploration programs by developing optical instruments for spacecraft. The viewfinders for orbital orientation of a spacecraft and astronomical viewfinders were unique and unparalleled in the world. The VSK3, VSK4, and VP1 viewfinders were installed on all the modifications of the Soyuz spacecraft, and the VShTV wide angle viewfinder was used on the orbital station Mir till its last days.
Ural Optical Mechanics Plant (UOMP)
In 1964, Plant No. 217 received an open identification - Ural Optical Mechanics Plant (UOMP). In that period, the plant occupied the leading position in the world in the production of aviation optics and became one of the pioneers in the development of laser equipment.
«Urals Optical & Mechanical Plant» was one of the largest optical industry enterprises in Russia, and is engaged in the development of various purpose optical-electronic systems, medical products, as well as geodesic devices and measuring appliances. The company shifted emphasis during perestroika to manufacture of civilian products – the plant becomes a regional leader in medical equipment manufacturing in the Sverdlovsk Region. Quite possibly, it was this shift that enabled Urals Optics and Mechanical Plant (UOMZ) to weather the hardships of the 1990s.
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