Post Sat Mar 12, 2016 4:09 pm

The History of Romanov Automobiles (Retold) Part I

From the memories of Evgeny Olegovich Peskov:

I’ve had a dry throat all morning. The sun had gained enough strength to make me seriously consider taking off my jacket. Luckily, it was time for my lunch break and as I strolled down Newski Prospekt, my mind wandered off.
Stalin had been dead for two years and Khrushchev was the new powerful man of the Motherland.

I had heard people speak of different times coming, that thaw had set in, literally.
The gulags were emptied, prisoners of war sent home, unless they had fallen in love with Russia, or a Russian devushka.
There was more work available, the wages were a little higher. I could tell that things were taking a turn for the better.

One month before I had begun working at my new job.
A small car factory had been opened right in the center of St. Petersburg and one could still tell that during the war, planes had been hastily built in the hangars to defeat the Nazis.

Now, my job at Romanov was all about welding ladder frames, undefinable metal parts and something which I was sure must have been an exhaust. I didn't know too much about cars, but I was quite good at welding things together.
So day in, day out I welded parts for a car and nobody even knew what it would look like. Comrade Ruslan made jokes about us just making parts, not for an actual automobile, just to keep us busy and sober during the day.

Not long after our jokes, a new sign was installed at the entrance, golden letters, spelling “Romanov Avtomobil’ni Zavod”, watched by a golden emblem of an eagle. Quite majestic.

Romanov was led by two surprisingly young engineers, always rushing about, checking the work we were doing. At times I wondered if they even slept at all. On our first day we were told that by the end of 1956, we were to build 125 Romanov.
There was obviously a lot to do before we could even attach a single tire. We were in short supply of seemingly everything. However, and one might even say, as usual, we did not mind and just carried on with our work.

Especially, considering the motivational speech we were given on our first day. “We are starting out small, but we will build cars, that will be known all over the world!” As if the Soviet Union alone wasn’t big enough. Yet, we all shared the same feeling early on, that there was something special about working for Romanov.

There were only fifteen minutes of lunch break left and my throat felt like the dry Tundra in Siberia. Finally I got to a Gazirovka. As I waited for my turn to get delicious cold water, I looked down the street. A row of cars had just set in motion and one of them carried an emblem on the front grill, which seemed awfully familiar to me.
Could it be? I got a good look as the car passed by, it was indeed the golden eagle. It was a Romanov.

The Romanov Odin, the first ever.

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