Mill production

The mill is one of the most interesting inventions of man. Before the appearance of mills, as we used to see them, wind and water, grain was not ground, but only made it smaller. For this purpose, stone mortars and pestles were used in ancient cultures. Later, the grain was ground. Interestingly, until the middle of the twentieth century, hand mills made of two wooden parts (millstones) with bent nails stuffed inside were preserved in peasant houses.

In the Middle Ages, man invented a water engine, the main one of which was the well-known wheel. In places where water flows quickly, wheels with special blades began to be installed. These blades, under the pressure of water, began to rotate the wheel. But not all rivers have a fast flow, to achieve this, dams were built on the rivers, leaving only a narrow place through which the water flowed noisily and quickly. It was in such places that watermills began to be built.

However, in our country there are many places where there is little water, and it is mainly in lakes, and it is necessary to grind grain, therefore, not the power of water, but the power of wind was used. Since the XVIII century, windmills ("vetryanka" or "windmills") have become widespread throughout Russia. In Western Siberia, a large number of them were located in Yalutorovsky district. It is no coincidence that a mill wheel is depicted on the coat of arms of the city of Yalutorovsk, and the Yalutorovsk residents themselves were nicknamed "millers". There were entire dynasties of millers, for example, the dynasty of peasants Sozonov (they were often represented by the surname Melnikov), who started mills in many villages of the Tobolsk province.

In the collective farm time, watermills and windmills regularly served the peasants, and in many places they can still be found. Now they don’t grind flour on them, but show it to tourists.

Flour milling

The first Russian settlers brought flour milling to Siberia. In the first half of the 17th century, most flour milling enterprises were located along the Tobol River and its tributaries. In the XVIII — first half of the XIX century Yalutorovsk took the leading place in flour processing (it is no coincidence that a mill wheel was depicted on the coat of arms of this city).

In 1888, there were 277 mills in the Tobolsk province, employing 510 workers. Annually, the mills produced more than 961 thousand pounds of flour, worth more than 643 thousand rubles.

At the end of the 19th century, the main part of flour mills was located in the southern districts of the Tobolsk province. Flour mills were built mainly in commercial farming areas. For example, 118 flour milling enterprises operated in the Yalutorovsky district. In rural areas, the former "windmills", "whorls", and watermills operated, production oriented to medium-sized agriculture. An ordinary village mill produced no more than 10−15 pounds of flour per day, and a large flour milling enterprise processed up to seven thousand pounds of grain daily. In 1908 There were seven such mills in the Tobolsk province, including flour mills of the Bakinov Brothers Trading House with an average daily grinding of 7.2 thousand pounds, the I.P. Kolokolnikov Heirs Partnership (6 thousand pounds), and the Kolmakov brothers.

The mill of the Tyumen merchant and industrialist A.I. Tekutyev stood out for its technical equipment. It was built on the American model of a multi-storey building. All the products in it were transferred from one production cycle to another, semi-automatically. The mill used foreign and Russian equipment: steam engine, rolling machine, millstones, sieves, filters, etc. There were up to ten working specialties, including millers, rollers, greasers, grain farmers and others. Up to 180 people were constantly working at the factory.

Thanks to the use of machines, milling became one of the leading branches of the province. At the beginning of the twentieth century, flour processing in the Tobolsk province occupied more than half of the factory production in Western Siberia. In 1913, there were 1,788 flour milling enterprises in the region, with a capacity of 3 million rubles.

Millers

Millers in the folk tradition are sorcerers who are familiar with evil spirits, primarily with water. Mills, like forges, were set up on the outskirts, outside the village, on the river. In ancient times, it was believed that in order to put up a mill, you must first sacrifice to a water person. Peasants told terrible stories about millers, as if they lured passers-by to themselves and drowned them, pushing them into a pool or under a mill wheel. In fact, the millers sacrificed to the watermen by throwing bread crumbs into the water, and on holidays they poured vodka.

The owner of the windmill, according to popular beliefs, knew all the winds and even "fed" the wind by throwing handfuls of flour into the air.

Millers in the folk tradition could treat, guess, enchant a rich groom to a girl. The abandoned mill was considered an unclean place by the peasants, they said that devils lived in it.

Elevators

Zavodoukovsky elevator

The history of one of the oldest enterprises began in August 1928, when the All-Union Soyuzkhleb Company began construction of a wooden gravity elevator of the Canadian type DL-550 with a capacity of 5,000 tons. The construction of a new enterprise began approximately where the so-called "slaughterhouse" was previously located. The complex included a dryer, a railway dead end, 10 warehouses of one thousand tons each and a work tower. The team was headed by I. Ulybin. The elevator received its first bread in August 1929. There was no opportunities of mechanization of the work. At that time, horses, hands and shoulders of workers served as the main draft force.

During the hard times of the war, almost only women and several men who were not conscripted by age worked at the elevator. They have passed all the tests with honor. Many employees of the company were awarded the medal "For valiant labor during the Great Patriotic War." In 1968, the construction of a new standard elevator for 46 thousand tons began. In 1974, he entered service. The volume of grain procurements in the 1970s was constantly growing, and in 1979−1980 a record was set — 92.6 thousand tons of grain were poured by Zavodoukov grain growers into the bins of the Motherland. And currently the elevator is the tallest building in the city. Nearby there is a park, which was originally called the same as the enterprise itself — Zagotzerno, then Elevator.

Yalutorovsky elevator

The history of the elevator began in 1911, when merchant E.D. Guseva received permission from the provincial authorities to build the first real production enterprise in Yalutorovsk — a steam mill. At that time, advanced equipment was already installed at the mill — 11 roller machines from the Buhler company.

Currently, the building of the old workshop has been declared a state monument of antiquity and is carefully preserved. In 2009, the enterprise "Unigrain" LLC was established on the basis of the Yalutorovsky Bakery plant. In 2013, the company launched new product packaging lines. The elevator can store 56 thousand tons of grain. The flour production capacity is 35 thousand tons of high-grade wheat flour, 13 thousand tons of cereal flakes and 120 thousand tons of compound feeds per year.