The Tractor Factory

Even though this is a city of 1.5 million people, it's never a big surprise to see a tractor chugging down the street in broad daylight.

They'd sputter past our window all the time when we lived at the end of a metro line. I've got a video of one red tractor slowly making its way down the street, followed by a honking wedding procession of luxury cars. Tractors even show up on Pushkin street downtown, a stone's throw away from upscale restaurants and windows displaying designer label clothes.

It turns out there's actually a tractor factory here- the Kharkov Tractor Plant, in operation for the past 83 years. It's called ХТЗ (pronounced hay ta zay) and the nearby metro stop is named Tractor Factory. When I first moved to Kharkov and started asking questions about the city, students always labelled ХТЗ as:
a) a cheap residential area
b) a notoriously sketchy part of town

Above: Son, we're moving! Below: To ХТЗ!

Somehow I never made it to this metro stop, never explored these streets, until just the other weekend as Tanya and I headed back to our frequent hangout spot, the "Green Forest" park near the Proletariat metro station. (Beforehand, we stopped at the local supermarket as usual, to pick up snacks for the park. I didn't buy either of these, but it was exciting to see my first-ever "Snickers with almonds" and the only can of Dr. Pepper I've ever seen in Ukraine [for $3 a can!]).

It was August 22nd and the park was full of families. Parents chatted, children whirled around and tugged on sleeves, babies stared placidly from strollers. This was before the temperatures dropped, making it probably the last weekend this year that anyone under age 8 was allowed outside without an outrageously warm jacket.





When it came time to head back, we decided to aim for the Tractor Factory metro stop instead of Proletariat, which meant our afternoon looked something like this to all the spy satellites up there:

In Green Forst park, I noticed this Chernobyl memorial for the first time.

We went past the gorgeous Oleksander Church.

And, of course, the local Lenin statue (outside of a courthouse, I think?)...

as well as this impressive mural.

We reached ХТЗ just as the sun began to set, meaning the quality of photos that my little phone could take became even worse :p

But who cares, because we'd made it! There were a few minutes of light left to capture what lay ahead.

This marked a small area for parking

I've never lived in an industrial city before and it always amazes me to think of the number of factories in Kharkov. So far I've slunk around the outsides of a tractor factory, a tank factory, a yeast factory, a sausage factory, and a turbine factory, met a man who works in a margarine factory, and driven past a factory that produces aviation equipment. Wow! How many factories are there in Kharkov? Is it possible to tour any of them?

Some official looking building at the tractor factory

The Kharkov Tractor Factory has a nice website (even an English version!) that I enjoyed checking out. It was also cool to see their photos from last month's Sorochinsky Fair.

So, the next time you see a tractor, just think- maybe it was produced right here!