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| Founded | 1894 |
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| Headquarters | Moscow, Russia |
| Website | russo-baltic |
Russo-Balt (sometimes Russobalt or Russo-Baltique) was one of the first Russian companies that produced vehicles and aircraft between 1909 and 1923. Its successor is the luxury armored SUVs producer Dartz. [1]
The Russo-Baltic Wagon Factory (German : Russisch-Baltische Waggonfabrik; Russian : Русско-Балтийский вагонный завод, RBVZ) was founded in 1874 in Riga, then a major industrial centre of Russian Empire. Originally, the new company was a subsidiary of the Van der Zypen & Charlier company in Cologne-Deutz, Germany.[ citation needed ]
In 1894 the majority of its shares were sold to investors in Riga and St. Petersburg, among them local Baltic German merchants F. Meyer, K. Amelung, and Chr. Schroeder, as well as Schaje Berlin, a relative of Isaiah Berlin. The company eventually grew to 3,800 employees. [2]
Between 1909 and 1915 some 625 cars were built at the railway car factory RBVZ, initially to the designs of the young Swiss engineer Julian Potterat. Potterat had formerly been a designer at Automobiles Charles Fondu in Brussels, and was now at age 26 directors of the RBVZ car section and a principal designer. [3] [4] In 1915 the Riga factory was evacuated, with the equipment being transferred to St. Petersburg, Fili (Moscow) and Tver. [5]
Today in Riga, Latvia, there is a company named Russo-Balt that manufactures trailers. [6]
In early 1912 company director M. V. Shidlovsky hired 22-year-old Igor Sikorsky as the chief engineer for RBVZ's new aircraft division in St. Petersburg. Sikorsky's airplane had recently won a military aircraft competition in Moscow. He brought several engineers with him to RBVZ, and agreed that the company would own his designs for the next five years.
This group quickly produced a series of airplanes. Among these were the S-5, S-7, S-9, S-10 (1913), S-11, S-12, S-16 (1915), S-20 (1916), Russky Vityaz (The Grand) (1913), a series named Il'ya Muromets starting in 1913, [7] and its planned successor, the Alexander Nevsky (1916).[ citation needed ]
Relatedly, in 1914, Shidlovsky was appointed commander of the newly formed EVK (Eskadra vozdushnykh korablei, Squadron of Flying Ships). This squadron flew Il'ya Muromets bombers during World War I.
The Bolshevik Revolution brought an end to the aircraft business. Sikorsky left for France in 1918. [8] Shidlovsky and his son were arrested in 1919, while attempting to go to Finland, and were murdered. [9]
After the 1917 revolution a second factory was opened in St. Petersburg, where they built armoured cars on chassis produced in Riga.
In 1922, the production was moved from St. Petersburg to BTAZ in Moscow. The Moscow plant was evacuated to Kazan in 1941, leading to the establishment of the Kazan Aircraft Production Association. [10] The Moscow site later became home to the Khrunichev Space Center. [10]
The brand "Руссо-Балт" was resurrected in 2006 by a group of German and Russian investors to propose a luxury concept car, the Russo-Baltique Impression, billed as a coupé with strong hints of European styling of the early 1930s. The car uses mechanical parts of Mercedes origin (Mercedes CL63 AMG), was first introduced at the 2006 Concours d'Elegance.
The car was meant to be produced by the German company Gerg GmbH (or perhaps Russo-Baltique Engineering GmbH).[ citation needed ] Total production of 10 to 15 cars maximum was expected, with a production rate of 2 to 3 cars a year. The selling price would have been around 50,000,000 rubles or 870,000 US dollars, but the project never materialized.
The current owner of the international trademark "Russo-Balt" is Russo-Balt, LLC (OOO), Moscow, Russia. [11]
Russo-Balt produced trucks, buses and cars, often more or less copies of cars from the German Rex-Simplex or Belgian Fondu Trucks.
Only two original vehicles have survived to the present day. One is a Russo-Balt fire engine built on a Type D truck chassis in 1912. This is on display at the Riga Motor Museum in Latvia. The other is a Russo-Balt K12/20 from 1911, which is shown at the Polytechnical Museum in Moscow, Russia.
Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky was a Russian–American aviation pioneer in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. His first success came with the Sikorsky S-2, the second aircraft of his design and construction. His fifth airplane, the S-5, won him national recognition and F.A.I. pilot's license number 64. His S-6-A received the highest award at the 1912 Moscow Aviation Exhibition, and in the fall of that year the aircraft won first prize for its young designer, builder and pilot in the military competition at Saint Petersburg. In 1913, the Sikorsky-designed Russky Viyaz (S-21) became the first successful four-engine aircraft to take flight. He also designed and built the Ilya Muromets family of four-engine aircraft, an airliner which he redesigned to be the world's first four-engine bomber when World War I broke out.
Argus Motoren was a German manufacturing firm known for their series of small inverted-V engines and the Argus As 014 pulsejet for the V-1 flying bomb.
The Sikorsky Ilya Muromets was a class of Russian pre-World War I large four-engine commercial airliners and military heavy bombers used during World War I by the Russian Empire. The aircraft series was named after Ilya Muromets, a hero from Slavic mythology. The series was based on the Russky Vityaz or Le Grand, the world's first four-engined aircraft, designed by Igor Sikorsky. The Ilya Muromets aircraft as it appeared in 1913 was a revolutionary design, intended for commercial service with its spacious fuselage incorporating a passenger saloon and washroom on board. The Ilya Muromets was the world's first multi-engine aircraft in production and at least sixty were built. During World War I, it became the first four-engine bomber to equip a dedicated strategic bombing unit. This heavy bomber was unrivaled in the early stages of the war, as the Central Powers had no aircraft capable enough to rival it until much later.
The Sikorsky Russky Vityaz, or Russian Knight (S-21), previously known as the Bolshoi Baltisky(The Great Baltic) in its first four-engined version, was the first four-engine aircraft in the world, designed by Igor Sikorsky and built at the Russian Baltic Railroad Car Works in Saint Petersburg in early 1913.
Dartz Motorz Company is a privately held Latvia-based company, subsidiary of Estonian corporation Dartz Grupa OÜ, that designs, manufactures, and sells high performance armored vehicles. The company constituted itself from a renovated former Russo-Balt factory in Riga, Latvia.
The Imperial Russian Air Service was an air force founded in 1912 for Imperial Russia. The Air Service operated for five years and only saw combat in World War I before being reorganized and renamed in 1917 following the Russian Revolution.
Adolphe Kégresse was a French military engineer who invented the half-track and dual clutch transmission.
Farrukh agha Mammad Karim agha oghlu Gayibov was a Russian pilot of Azerbaijani ancestry, and participant in World War I. He is considered to be the first Azerbaijani pilot.
Diatto was an Italian manufacturing company founded in 1835 in Turin by Guglielmo Diatto (1804–1864) to make 'carriages for wealthy customers'. In 1874 Guglielmo’s sons, Giovanni and Battista Diatto, began building railway carriages for Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits and the Orient Express. In 1905 Guglielmo's grandsons, Vittorio and Pietro Diatto, began Diatto-Clément, a cooperative venture making motor-vehicles under license from French manufacturer Clément-Bayard owned by industrialist Adolphe Clément-Bayard. By 1909 they had full ownership of 'Autocostruzioni Diatto' and began developing their own motor-vehicles and exporting them worldwide.
Alexander Leutner & Co. was the first manufacturer of bicycles and motorcycles, and a pioneer of automobiles, in the Russian Empire. The company was based in Riga.
The Sikorsky S-16, or RBVZ S-XVI, was a Russian equi-span single-bay two-seat biplane designed by Igor Sikorsky in 1914-15. Conceived in response to demand for an escort fighter for the Ilya Muromets bombers, it was noteworthy in that it was one of the first aircraft to possess synchronisation gear for its 7.7 mm machine gun. The first S-XVI was completed on 6 February 1915 with an 80 hp engine instead of the intended 100 hp because of supply problems. On 17 December 1915, the Russian government placed an order for 18 aircraft, these being delivered in early 1916.
The Sikorsky S-10 was a Russian military twin-float seaplane that served with the Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet from the summer of 1913 to 1915. After Igor Sikorsky built the successful Sikorsky S-6 for the Russian military, he tried to build another successful aircraft for them. The S-10 was a modified S-6B built by the Russo-Baltic Carriage Factory. Approximately sixteen production versions of the S-10 were built. It had a less powerful engine and generally weaker structure than the S-6. They had either an 80 hp Gnome Monosoupape or a 100 hp Argus Motoren engine. Some were deployed on the world's first operational seaplane carriers.
Automotive production is a significant industry in Russia, directly employing around 600,000 people or 1% of the country's total workforce. Russia produced 1,767,674 vehicles in 2018, ranking 13th among car-producing nations in 2018, and accounting for 1.8% of the worldwide production. The main local brands are light vehicle producers AvtoVAZ and GAZ, while KamAZ is the leading heavy vehicle producer. Eleven foreign carmakers have production operations or are their plants in Russia.
The Albatros G.I,, was a four-engined German biplane bomber of World War I.
The Sikorsky S-7 was a Russian single engine experimental prototype aircraft built by the Russian Baltic Railroad Car Works shortly after Igor Sikorsky became chief engineer of the aircraft manufacturing division.
The Sikorsky S-6 was a Russian single engine experimental aircraft similar to the S-5, built in 1911 by Igor Sikorsky.
The Argus 115 hp aircraft engine from 1913 was a six-cylinder, water cooled inline engine built by the German Argus Motoren company.
The RBVZ-6 was a WW1 era inline-six aircraft engine built by the Russo-Baltic Wagon Factory (RBVZ) at their workshops in Riga, Petrograd and Moscow. The engine was based on the German Benz Bz.III. RBVZ-6 engines powered several variants of the Sikorsky Ilya Muromets aircraft.
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