Konovalovka (natural boundary)

The former village of Konovalovka is located on the right bank of the Chusovaya River, 264 kilometers downstream of the Dog Ribs in the village of Sloboda and 13 kilometers from the village of Nizhnyaya Oslyanka , at the mouth of the Sylvitsa River (the right tributary of the Chusovaya River). In the vicinity of the tract are the ruins of the Konovalovski plant and the Kushva-Sylvitsky narrow gauge railway ^[1] .

The year of origin of the settlement is unknown. Since the construction of the Ust-Sylvitsky sawmill in 1915, the village became known as Konovalovka ^[2] .

Konovalovsky Plant

In 1900, the Ust-Sylvitsky sawmill was designed as a plant supplying timber to the Kushvinsky and Baranchinsky plants . Exploration of the route and sites also began in 1900. The project was supported by Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade D.P. Konovalov . Thanks to which the construction of the plant began in 1915. In May 1915, Dmitry Petrovich Konovalov himself arrived at the plant. Since 1915, the plant began to be called the Konovalovsky plant. A four-frame sawmill workshop, auxiliary workshops were built, equipment for continuous burning furnaces was installed, a power station, a forge, a carpentry workshop, utility and storage rooms, a railway depot, and a large bridge. The construction of the plant was carried out by recruited residents of the Vyatka province. In June 1915, the Stepanovka camp was organized from 3211 Austro-Hungarian and German prisoners of war. Boards in houses in Konovalovka were covered with Austrian addresses ^[2] .

Osip Samoilovich Yablonsky, formerly the former manager of the Kynovsky plant , was appointed manager of the Konovalovsky plant, later during the Civil War he was shot by the Reds ^[2] .

In the 1960s, the village ceased to exist ^[3] .

Currently, nothing remains of the former village ^[1] .

Konovalovo Station

In June 1915, the Council of Ministers agreed to the construction of a railway: a narrow-gauge railway with a length of 112 kilometers (105 miles) was laid from the Konovalovsky plant to the Kushvinsky plant . The cost of the railway project in 1915 was estimated at 2,750,000 rubles. There were 9 railway stations on it: Stepanovka, Plotinka, Ural, Kedrovka, Zhuravlik, Lukovka, Potyazh, Chuvashka, Konovalovo. Steam repair workshops were built in Kushva. Also on the railway line were 8 barracks, 16 semi-barracks and 3 water pumps. The size of the railway gauge was classic for the English railway at 1067 mm, which differed from the standard Russian narrow gauge railway at 750 mm. This was due to the fact that all the rolling stock from the Vologda-Arkhangelsk railway, which was rebuilt on a broad gauge, was moved here. “Maletta” locomotives of the Baldwin plants (USA) and locomotives of the Cockeril plants (Belgium) ^[4] .

In the fall of 1915, more than 1,200 people, on foot and horseback, local and recruited, as well as prisoners of war Germans, Magyars and Austrians, already worked at the construction site. The construction engineer was taken over by the railway engineer German Germanovich Brezinsky. In all contracts with contractors for the construction of a narrow gauge railway, there was a clause in which 0.1% of the ruble was spent on the construction of craft classes and a female gymnasium at the Kushvinsky factory ^[4] . A large five-span bridge was built across the Chusovaya River, but it was never built - revolutionary unrest prevented it.

In 1920, the restoration of the railroad began, but the plants switched to mineral fuel (coal), and therefore the need for this railroad disappeared. In 1928, the railway was partially closed, the rest was valid until the 1980s, timber was exported by the Goroblagodatsky timber industry ^[2] .