Brand History

Telegram for the Emperor

The history of Sevkabel began with the establishment of the telegraph and construction company Siemens & Halske by engineer Johann Halske and inventor Werner Siemens in Berlin in 1847. The envoy of the Russian Empire immediately took notice of the new business. Two years later, Siemens contacted Count Alexander Lüders, who, on behalf of the Russian government, was traveling around Europe to select the best electrical telegraph system. The count was impressed by the Siemens & Halske technology, and in 1851 he ordered 75 devices from them to build Russia’s first electric telegraph line between St. Petersburg and Moscow. At the end of the year, Siemens was invited to St. Petersburg for negotiations. As a result, the companies received an order to build a small line between Riga and the port of Bolderai.

In 1852, the German predecessor of Sevkabel already had a second government contract — for laying a telegraph line from Warsaw to the Prussian border. Werner Siemens arrived in Warsaw together with his younger brother Karl, who was only 24 years old, and left him there, with the support of two Berlin employees, to oversee the start of construction. Siemens himself went to St. Petersburg, where, after meeting with Count Kleinmichel, the chief administrator of communications, he signed a third contract — for the construction of a telegraph line from the Winter Palace to Kronstadt, which was to be completed by autumn.

Despite his brother’s youth, Werner entrusted him with work on the project. In early August, Karl arrived in St. Petersburg. He faced a difficult task: to remove the cable manufactured in England from the Winter Palace without damaging the integrity of its facade and to lay the line through densely built‑up city blocks. He decided to run the cable through the drainage system while preserving the structure of the palace. This bold and resourceful approach made an impression on Kleinmichel, and he fully trusted the young specialist.

In October of the same year, Carl Siemens completed the laying of the cable to Oranienbaum, and by the end of the year he had laid the remaining section along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to Kronstadt. Thus, Russia’s first underwater communication line was created, and it was one of the first in the world — it served for a full 35 years. By July 1854, Siemens & Halske had built a telegraph line between Gatchina and Warsaw. Nicholas I quickly mastered the new method of communication. If technical problems arose or if a message from Poland did not arrive at the appointed time, the emperor would send a courier to Kleinmichel, who would then unleash his fury on his subordinates.

By the end of the year, the Moscow—Kyiv line was also put into operation, and in 1855, seven more routes were added to it, including Kyiv—Odessa, St. Petersburg—Helsinki, and Nikolaev—Simferopol. In total, between 1853 and 1855, the future founders of the Northern Cable Plant laid about 9,000 kilometers of telegraph cable in Russia. However, the construction itself generated little income. The contract for the maintenance of the already established network provided real financial benefits, guaranteeing stable profits for ten years. In 1855, Carl Siemens officially took charge of the Contractors for the Repair and Construction of Imperial Russian Telegraphs.

After Alexander II ascended the throne and Kleinmichel left, the activities of the Russian division of Siemens & Halske noticeably slowed down: the country’s new leadership preferred to develop the telegraph system in‑house. In 1867, the last repair contract with the Simenses expired.

Cable Worker’s Day on Kozhevennaya Street

In the 1870s, Siemens & Halske gradually shifted from producing low‑current telegraph equipment to high‑current electrical engineering, such as lamps, locomotives, and dynamos. The revival of the weakened branch of the business in Russia was the result of a change in specialization. By that time, Karl Siemens had already been living in London for several years, but in 1880 he moved to St. Petersburg with his family.

He acquired two plots of land located on either side of Kozhevennaya Line on Vasilyevsky Island. In the spring of 1879, construction began on one of them — the first cable factory in Russia. It faced the bay and was adjacent to the barracks of the 3rd Naval Crew and the premises of the firm Kühnemann and Bode. On October 25, Siemens received permission from the Office of the Governor of St. Petersburg to produce electrical products at the future factory. Later, this date was established as Industrial Worker’s Day. The government supported the construction because domestic production would make it possible not to depend on imports in the event of war. Karl had to take into account the wishes of the Navy Ministry, and several ministers were present at the factory’s opening in 1882.

The appearance of the plant gave Siemens the opportunity to seriously engage in the development of electric lighting in St. Petersburg. To this end, in 1883, he bought a bankrupt company, the failure of which was associated with an attempt to electrify the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. At the same time, the company retained a valuable license to cover Nevsky Prospekt. Karl began by electrifying St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and by Christmas 1884 had installed electric lights in part of Nevsky Prospekt. However, the lights quickly faded and finally stopped working on January 11. The gas company that illuminated Nevsky Street up to Siemens disabled the steam power plant that supplied the system. After the repairs, the lights came back on.

In 1885, Siemens & Halske installed eight arc lamps in the Great Hall of the Winter Palace. Alexander III was so impressed by the result that he instructed the company to illuminate the entire palace. By the New Year’s ball in 1887, the system was completed, and 12,000 lamps flashed on simultaneously. Following this, electric lighting appeared in the Gostiny Dvor and the Noble Assembly.

Consolidate and Requisition

By 1898, in Russia, the Siemens family, in addition to the cable factory, had enterprises engaged in the production of lamps and copper rolled products. These three areas were united into the Joint‑Stock Company of Russian Electrical Engineering Plants “Siemens and Halske”. The new company immediately began to modernize the site on Kozhevennaya Line: in place of the wooden buildings, production buildings and the plant administration, built of red brick, appeared.

During the Russo‑Japanese War, the Siemens & Halske company supplied cables for Russian cruisers and Port Arthur, as well as field wires for the Manchurian army under Kuropatkin’s command. Using the proceeds from state defence orders, the enterprise acquired the factory of Eduard von Riben on Malaya Posadskaya Street, which produced “bare and insulated cables and wires made of chemically pure copper”.

United Cable Plants

After this transaction, the joint‑stock company finally abandoned the Siemens & Halske brand and became known as United Cable Plants. Around the same time, a significant competitor left the St. Petersburg market — the “M. M. Podobedov and Co.” Partnership for the Operation of Electricity, which later became Moskabel.

United Cable Factories became a monopolist approximately three to four years after its founding. By 1913, they had warehouses and representative offices in Moscow, Warsaw, Odessa, Kyiv, Riga, Rostov‑on‑Don, and Yekaterinburg. At that time, construction of a new copper‑rolling plant began at 39 Kozhevennaya Line in order to relocate production from Malaya Okhta.

In 1914, the war once again influenced the development of the enterprise, but this time it brought not profitable orders, but confiscation. On August 1, the plant, like other enterprises with German capital, was transferred to state ownership and began to work directly with the Military and Naval Departments. The number of employees increased rapidly: from 1,300 workers in 1915 to almost 3,000 by 1917.

And electrification of the whole country

During the turbulent period of social change, factory workers, following the course set by the proletariat, actively engaged in political life. They organized meetings and initiative groups, held strikes and walkouts, took part in two revolutions, and even participated in the storming of the Winter Palace. In early 1918, already under the established Soviet government, the enterprise changed its name again: by decision of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, it became known as Sevkabel — the Northern Cable Plant. During the Civil War, the plant continued to operate despite an acute shortage of raw materials and a reduction in staff to 350 workers.

In 1922, electrification under the GOELRO plan was launched in Soviet Russia, which sharply increased the demand for products from the cable industry. In response to this, the plant underwent large‑scale modernization: the production buildings were updated, modern equipment was purchased, and the staff was expanded. At that time, it was the only enterprise in the country that had its own research base and unique cables — power cables rated at 35 kV and oil‑filled cables rated at 110 kV. His products were used in the construction of the Volkhov and Dnieper hydroelectric power stations, as well as metallurgical plants in Kuznetsk and Magnitogorsk. The plant also played an important role in the power supply of Leningrad, laying the city’s first underground oil‑filled cable lines.

“Cable with money”

With the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, about 75% of Sovkabel’s employees were drafted to the front, and the bulk of the equipment and technical documentation were evacuated to the rear. Women and children took up machine tools in the workshops of Leningrad. The plant launched the production of new products: belts for artillery shells, tank wires, sapper cables, and cables for magnetic mines. But the plant’s greatest achievement was the well‑known Cable of Life, which made it possible to overcome the energy blockade of Leningrad. This is a 3×120 mm armoured underwater cable of the SKS brand. Due to the lack of insulating material, paper intended for the production of banknotes was used. That is why the cable got another name — “cable with a money note”.

By August 1942, the required 100 km had been produced and laid through the joint efforts of power engineers, cable workers, and volunteers along the bottom of Lake Ladoga in the form of five “strands”. The installation work was carried out mainly at night — during the day, the risk of air raids remained high. Connecting the restored Volkhov Hydroelectric Power Station to Leningrad took 45 days, and on September 22, 1942, power began to be supplied to the besieged city. After the war ended, all employees of the enterprise were awarded medals “For Valiant Labour”.

Bykov’s Laboratory

The post‑war era of the plant began with an educational project. Due to an acute shortage of specialists, in 1946 Sevkabel opened its own vocational school, which admitted its first intake of teenagers from villages and rural areas of the Oryol Region. At the same time, retraining courses and courses to master related professions were organized for the already working employees.

Starting in 1947, the plant was headed by chief engineer Dmitry Bykov — one of the creators of the “Cable of Life”. On the site of the warehouse that had burned down during the bombing, a laboratory for testing high‑voltage cables was built according to his design; it had no analogues in the USSR. This allowed the company’s specialists to develop unique types of cables and equipment, which were later used on the country’s largest construction projects. By 1948, production volumes had been restored to the pre‑war level. At that time, the first continuous vulcanization unit in the Soviet Union was built for the production of insulation and sheaths for ship cables. For this development, the company’s team was awarded a state prize in 1951.

In 1949, by order of the Ministry of Electrical Industry of the USSR, the Sevkabel Research Institute was founded. Initially, it was established as a branch of an all‑Russian industry research institute and included four departments: the department of radio‑frequency cables, communication cables, materials science, and design. The institute’s staff developed more than 100 inventions and carried out more than 40 research and development projects throughout its existence. Specialists at the research institute developed radiation‑resistant cables for eliminating the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, cable‑ropes for underwater object detection systems, cable and rope products for aerostats, power cables for magnetic systems of nuclear reactors, and a number of other unique developments.

Among the key innovations of the 1950s—1960s, in addition to the vulcanization unit, enameled wires with heat resistance up to 200 °C were developed, as well as high‑voltage radio‑pulse and deep‑water cables. During this period, SKZ products were widely used at facilities of the Moscow Metro and at the largest hydroelectric power plants of the USSR — the Bratsk, Volga, Sayano‑Shushenskaya, and Ust‑Ilimskaya hydroelectric power plants.

Naked and covered in nitrogen

In 1975, Sevkabel received the status of a production association: the Pskov Cable Plant and the Research Institute of the Cable Industry were joined to the plant on Kozhevennaya Line. During this period, the company’s specialists developed an underwater cable for the Arctic with protection against icebergs and launched the production of camera cables for the colour television broadcasting of the 1980 Olympics.

In 1977, the plant implemented an unusual engineering project — a continuous underwater cable 1.5 kilometres long was laid from Vasilyevsky Island to Bely Island. At that time, city‑wide wastewater treatment facilities were being built on the island, and they required an electricity supply. Laying the cable along the city streets would have been too lengthy and costly, so a shorter underwater route was chosen. However, it was impossible to wind a cable of that length onto any drum, and even if it had been successful, the lifting equipment would not have been able to support its weight. After lengthy discussions, the engineers made an unconventional decision: to abandon the lead sheath and place the “bare” cable in a vacuum container with liquefied nitrogen. In this form, it was pulled through a steel pipe laid underwater, and then the pipe was filled with an oil‑based dielectric.

In the 1980s, the production association set a course for mastering the production of optical communication cables. The first prototypes were developed, experimental “construction lengths” were carried out, including laying them across the Neva River in the area of the Liteyny Bridge, and a new production workshop was built.

At the request of the Ministry of Defense, the company manufactured underwater cable lines for laying in the Neva, Oka, Volga, the Gulf of Finland, the Black Sea, and even in the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Fiber-optic cables were also designed and produced for the Academseti; they are intended for installation in telephone conduits and are entirely made from domestic raw materials.