Rustam Minnikhanov lays flowers to the memorial to workers of the Kazan Gunpowder Plant who fall in Great Patriotic War

On 24 June the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov visited the Kazan Gunpowder Plant, which is celebrating its 238th anniversary of its establishment, and laid flowers to the memorial to workers of the Kazan Gunpowder Plant who fall in the Great Patriotic War (WW II). During the war more than 2 000 plant employees went to the front, many of them did not come back and eight workers became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

In the beginning of the war the plant was the main enterprise, continuously producing and supplying gunpowder to the front lines, and its Special Technical Bureau  (STB-40 of the People Commissariat of Internal Affairs) developed  propellant for rockets for the secret BM-13 Katyusha missile launcher. For the war years the plant supplied more than 4bn rounds for field and naval artillery, aircraft weapons, rifle cartridges, including 1 million rounds for Katyusha rockets, and in 1985 the Kazan Gunpowder Plant was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.