Arzamas Brewery was a brewing enterprise in Arzamas, founded in 1863 and shut down in 2006. It was located at 33 Berezin Street (an address on Lenin Avenue, 166B, was also given). At the time of its liquidation, it operated under the legal name OAO PivoVAr.[1]

Founding and the pre-revolutionary period

In 1863, Ivan Ivanovich Stregulin, a Nizhny Novgorod merchant and grain trader, received permission to produce beer in Arzamas. According to available information, he was not allowed to open a brewery in Nizhny Novgorod itself, so he chose Arzamas, locating the production in what was then Pesochny Lane. One version holds that this decision was made on the advice of Fyodor Yakovlevich Yermolayev, the owner of the Lyskovo Brewery.[1]

The brewery grew gradually: in 1879 it was rebuilt in stone. By 1884, Stregulin owned two breweries in Arzamas, both located on the grounds of his own house. The first produced 16,000 vedros of beer a year (11 workers), the second 15,000 vedros (10 workers); their combined turnover was about 33,000 rubles a year. After Ivan Stregulin's death, the business passed to two of his eight children, his son Nikolay and his daughter Anna. By the early 20th century, their firm dominated the beer market in the south of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate.[1]

The development of brewing in Arzamas took place against the backdrop of the city's economic decline: the construction of the Moscow–Nizhny Novgorod railway in 1862 and the opening of steamship service on the Volga deprived Arzamas, which lies south of the Volga, of its role as an important transport hub.[1]

Soviet and post-Soviet period

The brewery's history in the Soviet years is covered in the publication "Essays on the History of the Arzamas Brewery" (Arzamas, 1993; authors G. S. With the start of the Great Patriotic War in 1941, by order of Rosglavpivo the production of premium beers was discontinued; the brewery limited itself to three varieties, Zhigulyovskoye, Russkoye, and Ukrainskoye, in both draft (keg) and bottled form.[7] Sh. Sagalelyan and Ye. P. Titkov), a modestly produced book with black-and-white photographs.[1]

In the early 1990s the enterprise continued to operate. A label of Rossiyskoye beer from the Arzamas Brewery, dated 1992, has survived.[4] In directories of that period, the brewery was listed as OAO Arzamas Brewery at 33 Berezin Street, with the telephone number (83147) 4-15-16.[2][3]

Closure

OAO PivoVAr, the brewery's legal successor, paid its last tax to the Arzamas city budget in September 2006. With that, the brewery, which had operated for more than 140 years, ceased to exist.[1]

References

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Stregulin firm had wholesale warehouses in Lukoyanov, Pochinki, Ardatov, Krasnaya Sloboda, and Temnikov, and by 1914 it also had warehouses and shops in Tambov and Penza Governorates; at that time the brewery produced the beers "Viennese," "Munich," "Bavarian," "Export," and "Porter." The Arzamas brewery was awarded the Grand Prix at the 1906 beer exhibition in Paris; the award is attributed to the work of head brewer E. O. Wekenheiser, who worked for the Stregulins for almost 20 years — at the outbreak of the First World War he was exiled to Vologda Governorate as an ethnic German, while the prize cup, of unique design, was kept by the heiress of the family, E. S. Stregulina, until the late 1960s. By 1909 the enterprise employed 22 people, and its output reached 179,378 rubles a year; a 1913 inventory of production vessels records a wort kettle of 773 vedros, a brewing kettle of 265 vedros, and several fermentation vats with a total capacity of over 1,400 vedros.[7][7][7]

Sources

  1. nubo.ru — By the beginning of the 20th century, the Stregulin firm had wholesale warehouses in Lukoyanov, Pochinki, Ardatov, Krasnaya Sloboda, and Temnikov, and by 1914 it also had warehouses and
  1. fatportal.ru — "ARZAMASSKY" BREWERY (OJSC) — Food products: prices for sugar, meat, poultry, fish, milk, butter, vegetables, fruit, canned goods. (archive)
  2. arzvesti.ru — Arzamas Brewery: 1863–2004 — Arzamas News — Protection of Citizens' Rights and Freedoms (archive)
  3. moskadrov.ru — Vacancies "ARZAMASSKY" BREWERY
  4. zol.ru — "ARZAMASSKY" BREWERY (OJSC), Arzamas, beer, soft drinks — Grain Online (archive)
  5. nnfirms.ru — ARZAMASSKY BREWERY OJSC — Nizhny Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod Region
  6. notarc.org — Fund No. R-471 — Notarchive — 6qpp4