Traktor Zaporozec

"Zaporozhets" is the first Radyanskiy tractor. It was produced from 1923 at the plant "Red Progress" in the city of Velikiy Tokmak in Zaporizka region of Ukrainian SSR. The tractor was built on the basis of the 12-horsepower single-cylinder two-stroke oil-fired engine of the calorific type. Later the power of the engine was increased up to 16 hp.

Before the First World War in the village of Kichkas one of the plants began to develop a tractor using American models, but the war forced to stop the development. Only in 1921, when the activity of industrial enterprises began to improve, the technical leaders of the Kichkas plant engineers R. Rempel and A. Unger with the support of Gubmetal from Zaporizhia decided to build the first original tractor. It was built without any chairs, glasses, from waste materials, or other machine parts that were found at hand. The main goal of the engineers was to find out the practical value of two constructive solutions: a simple single-cylinder engine running on black oil and a single working wheel, in order to obtain a small and inexpensive tractor for the agricultural sector.

The protocol of the test sample reported: "A tractor with a 12-horsepower engine, consuming about two poods of black oil per tithe, at a plowing depth of up to four vertices could freely remove a layer of 65 square vertices of land. The tractor could plow 1.5-3 tithes of land a day.

Tractor project for production was transferred to the Tukmak factory "Red Progress" on 29th of November 1923, where the tractor was named Zaporozhets for the beginning of the policy of Ukrainianization. It was requested to master the series production. It is interesting that the way to the plant, more than 90 versts from the village of Kichkas "Zaporozhets" was by its own course. On the way to the plant it was demonstrated for the villagers several times that the land was being torn down.

The newspaper "Krasnoye Zaporozhye" wrote: "The competition between the first edition Zaporozhets and the Obukhov plant's tracked tractor Holt on the fields of Petrovsk agricultural academy in autumn 1923 was in favor of the domestic first-born tractor. On the average "Zaporozhets" spent about 30 kg of oil for plowing a tenth of land at the four-vertical depth. Holt tractor - 36 kg of kerosene. For the original tractor design applied to the USSR conditions, with good assembly, performance and tractive effort, State Plant No 14 was awarded with the Honorary Diploma of the First Degree".

The production program planned to increase the production of "Zaporozhets" up to 300 pieces per year up to 1924-1925. But this plan could not be implemented. Comrade Stalin demanded that one line of tractors could be used for production of tanks and armored vehicles in a few days.. The Zaporozhets production facility was not suitable for such demands.

The total number of "Zaporozhets" tractors at the plant "Red Progress" - from 1923 to 1926 was produced about 500 pieces. In 1925 it was equipped with 16 strong engine instead of 12 strong one.

The 107th ZaporozhetsThere is one known fact of the use of the Zaporozhets tractor in the collective farm fields in the Chernigov region of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The tractor with number 107 was used by the tractor driver and mechanic M. I. Roskot from Chernihiv region worked without a doubt from 1924 till 1958.

Collective workers and the tractor driver loved and respected their tractor. There is a legend that during the Great World War, German soldiers unwillingly stepped on the collective farm field. The impatience of the attack forced the collective farm workers to abandon their work and leave. German soldiers saw that a machine was standing in the field, but they were disappointed and decided not to touch the unknown machine and went away.

In this way the collective farmers decided to save their tractor. Roskot disassembled it, preserved its parts and buried them in a safe place. After the liberation of Chernihivschyna the tractor parts were dug up, the Zaporozhets was collected and it came to the aid of the dismantled collective farm.

In 1958 the tractor was declared old and replaced with a new machine. "The Zaporozhets, due to an incident during the war, went to the Chernigov Historical Museum, where it is preserved to this day.

The museum does not have a room or a place for a pedestal to demonstrate the tractor, so it is stored in the courtyard in the rooms of the museum storage.