Industrialization

At the beginning of 1925, there were approximately 2,000 retail and trading establishments in the region, including 128 state-owned, 739 cooperative and 1,113 privately owned businesses.

By the end of the 1920s, the devastation of industry had been overcome. The region’s industrial enterprises and small workshops produced consumer goods, construction materials, agricultural equipment and small river vessels. In 1928, the timber-processing industry had reached 1.6 times its 1913 output, while mechanical engineering and metalworking had reached 2.3 times their pre-war levels.

During the First Five-Year Plan, a plywood combine equipped with the best machinery was established on the site of Loginov’s small match factory. A new shipbuilding yard was constructed and soon began producing river vessels for Siberian waterways. A new locomotive depot and a power station were also built. The power station’s capacity increased sixfold compared with the pre-revolutionary period. Construction began on a felt-boot factory, residential buildings and cinemas. Total capital investment in the development of the city’s industry, transport and culture during the First Five-Year Plan exceeded 23 million roubles.

In 1927, the Mechanic factory, formerly the Masharov factory, became one of the first enterprises in the country to master the production of complex railway-sleeper cutting machines. The machines manufactured by Mechanic cost half as much as those imported from the United States and proved more reliable in operation. The factory also mastered the production of rolling and felting machines, complex wool-teasing machines, gluing and envelope-making presses, and other new products.

Construction of access roads to industrial enterprises expanded. Residential buildings, schools, public utilities and cultural and educational institutions were built, while efforts were made to improve the city.

At that time, Tyumen remained the principal industrial centre of the Trans-Urals, with approximately 6,500 workers in 1930. During the 1930s, the city acquired a new power station and various workshops.

The Tyumen Regional Museum opened in 1926. In the 1920s and 1930s, gardens and parks were among the townspeople’s favourite places to relax. They were an integral part of every town in the Tyumen region. In central Tyumen, on the site of the present-day Palace of Pioneers, stood Lenin Garden, formerly known as Spassky Garden. It had a summer theatre where a brass band performed and public festivities were held.

Another garden was located between the present-day agricultural institute and the university. Professional actors and amateur performers frequently appeared on its specially equipped stage. Later, the garden was transferred to the Spartak sports society. In the 1930s, a fountain was installed there, and people danced to the music of a brass band on the dance floor.

Not far from this garden, along the banks of the Tura River, stretched the large Prikazchichiy Garden. It extended from the building that now houses the dermatology clinic to the Annunciation Cathedral, which was still operating in the 1920s. When the Annunciation Cathedral was demolished by explosives, the riverbank collapsed together with part of the garden. The club located there was dismantled and moved closer to the railway station. This marked the beginning of one of the city’s oldest clubs, the Railway Workers' Club.

Tyumen’s Railway Station Square was beautiful and green. In 1930, a fountain called The Deer was installed in the garden near the station. Zagorodny Garden was also extremely popular among Tyumen residents. The gardens and parks helped shape the city’s distinctive appearance during these years.

In November 1930, classes began at the Tyumen Agricultural and Pedagogical Institute, the only higher education institution in the region at that time. When the institute began training specialists for the entire Ural Region in 1932, it changed its name to the Ural Pedagogical Institute. In 1934, a two-year teachers' institute was established on its basis. It trained teachers of chemistry, physics, mathematics, geography, Russian and history for seven-year schools.

By 1932, all religious buildings had been closed, with the exception of All Saints' Church. The Trinity Cathedral and the Polish Catholic church were used as military warehouses; the St Nicholas Church housed workshops belonging to the agricultural technical school; the Znamenskaya Church was converted into garages; and the Spasskaya Church housed a library and an archive, among other uses.

The fate of the Annunciation Cathedral was particularly tragic. On the night of 13−14 June 1932, it was demolished with explosives by decision of the Presidium of the Tyumen City Council. According to the city authorities, the reason was an acute shortage of bricks for construction. The Spasskaya Church was also due to suffer the same fate. Only the intervention of Glavnauka, the state authority responsible for scientific institutions and the protection of cultural heritage, saved this remarkable 18th-century architectural monument from destruction.

In 1934, the Ural Region was abolished. In the same year, a considerable part of the Trans-Urals became part of the Ob-Irtysh Region, with Tyumen as its administrative centre. However, this new administrative unit existed only until early 1935, when it was decided that the territory should become part of the Omsk Region.

In April 1934, an aviation group belonging to the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route’s Polar Aviation Service was established in Tyumen, and air routes were opened to the northern parts of the region.

The news that Nazi Germany had attacked the Soviet Union reached the small Siberian city of Tyumen in the afternoon of 22 June 1941. A rally was held in the former Market Square, now Central Square. It was attended by 20,000 people, or two-thirds of the city’s population. The following day, thousands of volunteers reported to military enlistment offices without waiting for the decree on mobilisation issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

In the autumn of 1941, 22 evacuated factories were relocated to Tyumen, some of which remained there after the war. By the spring of 1942, all of them had begun operating. The city supplied the front with armoured boats, mortars, motorcycles, electrical equipment for tanks, artillery shells, mines, sheepskin coats, felt boots and food.

In October 1941, a single enterprise, Factory No. 639, was established by merging the local shipyard, now a shipbuilding plant, with its branch in Mys, which operated as a ship repair yard. The new enterprise’s main products were torpedo boats.

On 25 November 1941, the first railway wagons carrying equipment from the Taganrog Motorcycle Factory arrived in Tyumen. The new production facility was set up in the buildings of an old brewery, which later became the ATE plant. Within just a couple of months, the first Tyumen-made motorcycles rolled off the assembly line: the M-72 and the TIZ-AM-600.

In November 1941, trains carrying equipment from Aircraft Factory No. 241, evacuated from the Moscow region, arrived in Tyumen. The staff of the design bureau led by the legendary aircraft designer Oleg Antonov also arrived. Central Square was designated as the production site, and work soon began where the building of the regional Duma now stands.

A-7 military transport gliders, made from locally produced plywood, emerged from Tyumen’s hangars. In total, the city sent 600 gliders to the front.

During the war, approximately 250,000 residents of Tyumen and the surrounding region were drafted into the Red Army by the military enlistment offices of Tyumen Region. More than 70,000 received state awards, 93 were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and 12 became full holders of the Order of Glory.

Lenin’s sarcophagus, containing his body, remained in the city throughout the war. The secretary of the city party committee was informed only a week in advance that a special train carrying a highly important object would arrive in Tyumen. However, it was not until 10 July, inside the saloon carriage of the arriving train, that he, the chairman of the City Council and the head of the city department of the NKVD were told whom he was expected to provide with "living accommodation".

The agricultural technical school building was surrounded by a high fence, and the second-floor windows, behind which the mummy was kept, were bricked up. No one outside a small circle of people entrusted with state secrets knew what was inside the building, although many suspected the truth. State Security Post No. 1 was established at the entrance to the burial chamber. Guards were relieved in shifts around the clock.

In 1942−1943, the first prisoner-of-war camps appeared in the region. Prisoners were distributed among camp facilities located both within the city and outside it. Most of those arriving were Germans, although there were also Hungarians, Italians, Croats, Slovaks and others.

Immediately after the decree establishing Tyumen Region was published, the formation of regional government and administrative bodies began. K. F. Koshelev became chairman of the Regional Council of Workers' Deputies. Sessions of district, city and local district councils were held from the autumn of 1944 through the spring of 1945.