Description of the attraction
Togliatti, founded on the left bank of the Volga by Vasily Tatishchev in 1737 as a fortress city of Stavropol (until 1964), in the 1970s became a large industrial city thanks to the construction of the largest Volga automobile plant.
In 1966, a large-scale construction of an automobile plant began with the technical support of the Italian concern Fiat. At the same time, a new residential area was being built - Avtozavodskaya - for future workers in the automotive industry. 48 thousand people were involved in the construction of the plant. Special equipment came from 166 factories in the country, more than 1200 factories and enterprises supplied the future leaders of the automotive industry with building materials, tools and production equipment.
On April 19, 1970, the first six cars with the VAZ-2101 brand came off the assembly line (the prototype FIAT-124 adapted to Russian roads). In August of the same year, planned production began with subsequent implementation, and in December 1973, the millionth car was already produced. The role of the people's "kopeck" in the history of the domestic automotive industry can hardly be overestimated.
Today AvtoVaz is the largest plant in Europe, with a production capacity of up to eight hundred thousand cars a year and 67 thousand jobs. The area occupied by the plant is more than 600 hectares, and the length of the main conveyor is more than one and a half kilometers.
Having become the leader of the domestic auto industry for many years, the Volzhsky Automobile Plant is a landmark of the city of Togliatti and Russia as a whole.
