00:00By the time the Soviet government began construction of the Kharkiv tractor plant,
00:03it already had some experience under its belt.
00:06Initially, it was planned that the new plant would be a copy of the Stalingrad plant.
00:09However, the chief construction engineer, Leon Ivi Svajian,
00:13an American of Armenian descent who had lived in Turkey before emigrating,
00:16faced a number of difficulties, particularly with the supply of steel.
00:19So the project had to be revised and reinforced concrete had to be used.
00:23To adapt the Stalingrad plant, about 100 specialists were sent to Kharkiv to the State Design Bureau,
00:28whose work was supervised by Moretz Kahn, the brother of Albert Kahn.
00:31The designers managed to solve the problem with the supply of necessary tools.
00:35They simply produced them on site, and the first building constructed was the tool shop.
00:40In this way, the plant was essentially building itself.
00:42This was a significant challenge not only for the Soviet builders but also for the Americans.
00:47They couldn't just do what they were used to,
00:49order everything they needed from catalogs and calmly wait for it to be delivered on time.
00:53Anything that could be made on site had to be made in-house.
00:56In the end, after overcoming all obstacles,
00:59the plant was opened on September 1st in 1931,
01:02less than two years after construction began.
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