Kharkov between the days of a mechanical engineer: a good face against a bad game?

Since Soviet times, Mechanical Engineer's Day has been celebrated in the CIS countries on the last Sunday of September, while Ukraine has been doing this a week earlier than others for a quarter of a century in a row. It’s clear that for Kharkov, both of these days are not an empty phrase. After all, until recently, giant factories, and not the Barabashovo market or attack aircraft with a wolf hook, were the calling card of the city.

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Since Catherine's times, the provincial city not only brewed beer, distilled moonshine and traded. Both under the kings and under the general secretaries, products were produced here that required educated specialists and skilled workers.

At the time of its heyday, in 1980, sixty enterprises operated in Kharkov, the largest of which were the Turbine Plant named after. Kirov (later - “Turboatom”), KhTZ im. Ordzhonikidze, "Electrotyazhmash", "Hammer and Sickle" (formerly "Gelferikh-Sade"), aircraft plant named after. Lenin Komsomol, an association for the production of aggregate machines.
In the first half of the 1980s, the following came off the assembly lines of Kharkov factories:

100% turbines for nuclear power plants;
33% steam turbines;
60% diesel engines for mainline diesel locomotives;

As a result of the collapse of the USSR, the crisis and reforms of the 1990-2000s, as well as incompetent management, more than ten large enterprises in Kharkov ceased to exist. Among them is “Sickle and Hammer” (in its place is an overgrown wasteland).

The “Conditioner” plant, the Kharkov Tractor Engine Plant, the “Porshen” and “Radiodetal” plants, rebuilt into warehouses and shops, ceased to exist. The rest of the enterprises survived. Some, like Turboatom, are guaranteed orders for many years to come, while others are barely surviving and accumulating debts to employees and utility providers.

For example, an aircraft factory where the gas was turned off due to debts. The other day he was forced to refuse a military order - he decided to suspend the contract for the production of tracks for infantry fighting vehicles. The director of the aircraft plant, Sergei Zadorozhny, believes that this is an unusual and unprofitable product for the aircraft plant. “We don’t make money on one set, but lose up to 300 thousand hryvnia. We need gas stoves, but we heat with electricity - and pay crazy money. We have a very weak forge - we never needed it, and in tank building we mainly use forges to forge tracks. Therefore, everyone should mind their own business,” Zadorozhny said.

Instead, the enterprise will produce products that are less energy-intensive and more specific to its profile. The Motor Sich company from Zaporozhye plans to order the production of fuselages for helicopters at the aircraft plant. The plant management has already signed some of the documents and, according to the director, “any day now the enterprise will begin production.”
The reduction in ties with Russia has hit the mechanical engineering industry of the city and region hard. Here, for comparison, is what Galina Fedenko, head of the Special Tax Inspectorate for working with large payers, reported.

Based on the results of work for the 1st quarter of 2014, the most significant contribution to the state budget was made by Turboatom, Kharkov Heating Networks, CHPP-5, Elektrotyazhmash, Ukrspetsvagon, and Eurocement-Ukraine. And for 8 months of 2018, the most paid to the state treasury were:

• PJSC “Philip Morris Ukraine”;
• JSC “Turboatom”;
• Kub-Gaz LLC;
• JSC “Kharkovoblenergo”;
• “CHP-5”;
• KP “Kharkov Heating Networks”;
• Southern Railway.

Again, as in the 90s, the tobacco factory is the leader among payers. True, then the second place was occupied by the Rogan brewery, and now it is in the second ten. The fact is that utility providers, not engineering manufacturers (except turbine builders), have become the most productive cash cows for fiscals. And exactly the same fact is that not far from the aircraft plant, Kharkov residents photographed goats, which can be considered an indicator of de-urbanization or, more simply, the transformation of a city into a village.