Kreenholmi Manufactory

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Kreenholmi Manufactory, 2009

The Kreenholmi Manufaktuur (German: Krähnholm Manufaktur , most recently: Kreenholmi Valduse ) is an Estonian textile factory in Narva . It was founded in 1857 by a group of industrialists around the Bremen businessman Ludwig Knoop . The cotton spinning and fabric weaving mills were before the First World War, the most important Russian textile factory and were among the largest in the world. An almost complete decline in business activity after 1919 was followed by the nationalization of the company after the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union in 1944 and a second flourishing as a state-owned company. After regaining independence, the company was privatized again in 1994. In 2010 she went bankrupt; under a new owner, production continues to a very limited extent.

history

19th century

In 1857 Ludwig Knoop from Bremen, a pioneer of the Russian cotton industry, founded a cotton mill with the local industrialists Kosma soldierskow and Alexei Chludow . He had previously acquired the island of Kreenholm ( Crows Island ) in the Narva River , right on the border between the governorates of Estonia and Saint Petersburg . The facilities were expanded quickly. In 1872 a cholera epidemic broke out that claimed the lives of 420 workers. The reintroduction of a company-owned police unit, which was initially disbanded after the epidemic, resulted in work stoppages and the first major strike on Estonian soil in the same year. The strike developed into an insurrection that could only be put down with regular troops. A state commission investigated the incidents and concluded that working conditions needed to be improved; the factory police were lifted.

In 1893 the factory had 340,000 bobbins and 22,000 looms in use and employed 7,000 people. The German economist Gerhart von Schulze-Gaevernitz visited the factories in the 1890s and described the place as "a bit like England on Russian soil".

At the mouth of the Narva in Narva-Jõesuu , 16 kilometers away , large warehouses were built to hold cotton imported directly from the USA or via Liverpool . According to the demand of the factories, the goods were then transported across the river to Narva. The machines were distributed among three brick buildings, two of which were five-story and one was four-story. Another plant, which was used exclusively for spinning, was built in an American style. The English company Platt Brothers & Co Ltd in Oldham supplied the machines for carding and spinning. Some looms also came from England, but most of them were made by the company with its own mechanical engineers in an annex. The energy for the transmission drives was supplied by 11 water turbines with a total output of 8,550 hp, and steam engines with 700 hp were also in use.

Seventy percent of the bobbins produced yarn, which was mainly sold to weavers in the Saint Petersburg and Moscow textile districts. One of the manufactory's specialties was 90-ply yarns made from Egyptian raw materials, which were used in the manufacture of rubber tires. The bandwidth of the yarns ranged from three-thread to 90-thread, around 330,000 of the bobbins were of the spinning mule type . The weaving products were mostly printed cloth with different finishes and satin . Almost all of these products were supplied to a Moscow company in which Kreenholm held a large share.

The managers were English, the workforce consisted of Russians and Estonians. The company cared about the welfare of its employees. It operated a hospital, schools for 1,200 children and supported the construction of the Russian Orthodox Resurrection Cathedral and the construction of the Evangelical Lutheran Alexander Church for the Estonian workers. The employees who lived on the company's premises only paid a nominal rent.

Illustration from the album "Krengolmskaya Manufactory. Historic Description, composed on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of its Existence", St. Petersburg, 1907. Standing from left: Ernst Kolbe, Alexei Chludow, Gerassim Chludow. Sitting from left: Kosma soldierskow, Ludwig Knoop, Richard Barlow

20th century

In 1910 wages totaled $ 1,370,000. 74,660 bales of cotton were processed, resulting in 34,861,796 pounds of yarn and 159,994 pieces of cloth (with an average length of 40 meters).

Before the First World War, the factory employed more than 10,000 people and annually produced over 70,000 kilometers of semi-finished cotton fabrics that were bleached, dyed and processed in Russia.

After World War I and the fall of the Russian market after the October Revolution , the Estonian cotton industry suffered a severe slump that led to the almost complete closure of what had previously been the largest of its kind in the Russian Empire .

In 1944 the plant was badly damaged in the fighting for Narva and was subsequently nationalized by the Soviet authorities. It was rebuilt and returned to its old size, but now no longer committed to private pursuit of profit, but to a centralized, planned economy. In the early 1970s, the combine owned 32,000 acres and employed 12,000 people. After 1986 it regained part of its freedom and was allowed to conclude export contracts for the first time without the permission of the Textile Ministry in Moscow. In 1994, after Estonian independence was restored, it was reprivatised. The main shareholder became the Swedish company Borås Wäfveri AB . The Krenholm Group was then subdivided into the production units Krenholm Finishing (finishing), Krenholm Sewing (sewing), Krenholm Spinning (spinning), Krenholm Terry Clothes (clothing), Krenholm Weaving (weaving); and the administrative unit Krenholm Service and the subsidiaries responsible for sales Krenholm Textile , Krenholm Scandinavia AB and Krenholm Germany GmbH .

21st century

In recent years the company has fallen into the red, restructuring has cost numerous employees their jobs. In 2003 the spinning mill was closed and 170 workers were laid off. At the beginning of 2004, 4,600 workers were still employed, of which another 400 were laid off in April 2004.

The first rumors of an imminent bankruptcy already existed in 2008. In November 2010, the company had to file for bankruptcy with a debt of 9.5 million euros. The company was sold to the Swedish Prod i Ronneby AB , whose subsidiary Eurotekstiil wanted to continue the business on a small scale; only 500 people were still employed. At the beginning of 2012, the CEO of Eurotekstiil stated that it would be “absolutely impossible” to resume business operations at the previous level.

literature

  • Society of the Krähnholm Manufactory for cotton products 1857-1932 . Tallinn: Krahnholm Manufactory Publishing House, 1933

Individual evidence

  • This article uses text from the United States Congress' "Congressional edition." (1912).
  1. ↑ a b c d United States. Congress (Ed.): Congressional edition . 1912, p. 34 ff . ( Google Books [accessed March 29, 2012] Public domain).
  2. ↑ Published for the Institution by Mechanical Engineering Publications Ltd. (Ed.): Proceedings - Institution of Mechanical Engineers . 1899, p. 266 ff . ( Google Books [accessed March 29, 2012] Public domain).
  3. ^ William L. Blackwell: Russian Economic Development from Peter the Great to Stalin . Ed .: New Viewpoints. 1974, ISBN 978-0-531-06363-7 , pp. 132 ( Google Books [accessed April 2, 2012]).
  4. ↑ Toivo U. Raun: Estonia and the Estonians . Ed .: Hoover Press. 2001 ( Google Books [accessed April 1, 2012]).
  5. ^ SP Turin: From Peter the Great to Lenin: History of Russian Labor Movement With Special Reference to Trade Unionism . Ed .: Psychology Press. 1968, ISBN 978-0-7146-1364-2 , pp. 37 ff . ( Google Books [accessed March 29, 2012]).
  6. ^ Hall (Ed.): Hall's journal of health . 1893, p. 20th ff . ( Google Books [accessed March 29, 2012] Public domain).
  7. ^ Geoffrey Drage: Russian affairs . Ed .: J. Murray. 1904, p. 363 ff . ( Google Books [accessed March 29, 2012] Public domain).
  8. ^ Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity (ed.): Estonia, 1940-1945: Reports of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity . 2006, ISBN 978-9949-13-040-5 ( Google Books [accessed April 2, 2012]).
  9. ^ A b Sidney Pollard, Colin Holmes: Documents of European economic history: Industrial power and national rivalry, 1870-1914 . Ed .: Edward Arnold. 1972, ISBN 978-0-7131-5618-8 , pp. 106 ( Google Books [accessed April 2, 2012]).
  10. ↑ United States. Bureau of Markets and Crop Estimates (Ed.): The Market reporter . 1921, p. 127 ff . ( Google Books [accessed March 29, 2012] Public domain).
  11. ↑ Thomas Edström, David Haimo, Tommy Larnefeldt: WHEN PLAN BECOMES MARKET - A company's successful change. The case of Krenholm, Estonia. Linköping University, 2003, archived from the original on April 26, 2005 ; accessed on July 23, 2019 (original website no longer available).
  12. ↑ Helena Hannula, Slavo Radošević, GN Von Tunzelmann: Estonia, the new EU economy: building a Baltic miracle? Ed .: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. 2006, ISBN 978-0-7546-4561-0 , pp. 310 ff . ( Google Books [accessed March 29, 2012]).
  13. ↑ a b Krenholm plans more layoffs . February 12, 2004. Retrieved April 2, 2012.
  14. ↑ a b New Owner: Kreenholm Bought for Parts . January 9, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2012. 
  15. ^ Swedish Prod i Ronneby buys the last assets of Kreenholm . January 9, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2012. 

Coordinates: 59 ° 21 ′ 26 ″  N , 28 ° 11 ′ 27 ″  E