The copper capital of the Middle Urals, as Upper Pyshmintsy sometimes call their city, is one of the most prosperous cities in Russia. Thanks to the successful work of the city-forming enterprise - the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company - Verkhnyaya Pyshma confidently looks to the future.
general information
The small satellite city of Yekaterinburg in the Sverdlovsk region has practically merged with the administrative center of the region. The distance between the centers of the two cities is approximately 14 km. It is located on the gentle slopes of the Middle Urals, on the east side, at the source of the Pyshma River.
Verkhnyaya Pyshma has a developed engineering and social infrastructure and industry. The main industries are metallurgy, engineering and metalworking.
Territory development
The date of foundation of the settlement is considered to be 1701. According to archival documents, the first inhabitants of the village of Pyshma were coachmen and ore miners. Among them there were many Old Believers who fled from persecution from the central provinces. In this village, the first stoppers were the departing travelers on the Great Verkhotursk road from Yekaterinburg to Verkhoturia, through Nevyansk and Nizhny Tagil. Here they fed or changed horses in front of a long road. For travelers traveling north, this was the last stop in front of the civilized world.
The incentive for the development of the region was the decree of the Senate of 1812, allowing all Russian citizens to search and develop silver and gold mines with payment of taxes to the treasury. Already in 1814, the first gold deposits were discovered in the upper reaches of the Pyshma River.
First settlement
By 1823, two placers of gold were discovered on the territory of the urban district, for the first time in the Urals. The development of deposits began. In 1854, work began on the first mine - John the Theological or Ivanovo. In those days, all work was done manually, drifts in the mines were lit with greasy candles. The working day lasted 12-14 hours.
In the same year (April 3, 1854), an application was submitted to the Ural Mountain Board for the discovery of the Pyshminsko-Klyuchevskoye field. In the same year, ore mining began, two years later a small smelter was built and copper smelting began. 306 people worked in the extraction and transportation of ore, including 171 civilian workers and 135 serfs. The population of Verkhnyaya Pyshma was replenished at that time by experienced workers from the Utkinsky plant.
Gradually, a settlement began to grow near the mining site, which was called the Pyshminsko-Klyuchevskoy copper mine or simply the Copper mine. Barracks and huts were built for miners and lumberjacks, which stretched out into the first street of the working village. She was called Pyshminsky, is now called the street to them. Syromolotova F.F. Due to the constant flooding of mines with groundwater and the high cost of mining, the mine worked very irregularly. In 1875, the development of the deposit was closed, only occasionally resuming the extraction of gold.
First half of the 20th century
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the smelter was re-launched; by 1907, 6 shaft and two shlezofosny furnaces were already operating. By this time, 700 people worked on the extraction and smelting of copper. In 1910, the industrialist Yakovlev bought the plant from Countess Stenbock-Fermor. In 1916, production was reconstructed, an additional regenerative furnace was built for the smelting of semi-finished products and copper ore with a capacity of 100 tons per day. In the first months of 1917, a steam boiler exploded in the mine. The mine was destroyed, as a result of which the extraction and smelting of copper was stopped.
During the civil war, the population of Verkhnyaya Pyshma formed a detachment of 200 soldiers who fought on the side of the Red Army. In the post-war years, the plant was restored, and it worked for another two years (1924-1926), a reflective workshop for ore processing and other industries were launched, and copper production began.
In 1929, work began on the construction of the Pyshminsky Copper Electrolyte Plant, two years later an enrichment plant was built, and in 1934 the first anode copper was smelted. Currently, it is Uralelectromed OJSC, a leading enterprise of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company. In 1938, the Copper Mine was given the status of a working village and the name Pyshma. According to the 1939 All-Union Census, the number of inhabitants reached 12, 976 people.
