On the northern shore of Tsemes Bay in the middle of the industrial zone of the Eastern district of Novorossiysk, the only Cement Museum in Russia has been opened. Here you can see a very interesting exhibition if you are interested in the development of the cement industry of the Soviet Union.
The Cement Museum is open in one of the buildings that used to belong to the company "Novoroscement". This is one of the largest cement production sites in Russia. At the moment, Novoroscement combines three cement plants.
Several centuries ago, the main binding solution for stone construction was gypsum, and then lime. In the middle of the 19th century, the production of cement began, which significantly surpassed them in its technical characteristics.
In 1839, the first cement factory was opened in St. Petersburg, and then such factories began to open all over the country near major cities. The Novorossiysk cement plant was founded in 1882, and soon became one of the largest in the Russian Empire, as it was most cost-effective to extract marl rock from the Markotkhsky ridge, which is the raw material for making cement.
The Cement Museum is located in 10 halls. In the first halls you can get acquainted with the formation of this industry in the middle of the 19th century, the construction of the first factories, tools that were used for the production of cement. Here is the Desk and personal belongings of Professor Ivan Ponomarev, who was one of the founders of the cement industry in the Russian Empire.
The subsequent halls of the Cement Museum in Novorossiysk are dedicated to the industrialization of the Soviet Union, which began in the 1920s. Cement factories began to be built all over the country, and by the 1960s the USSR had become the world`s largest cement producer, with a production volume of more than 100 million tons.
Two halls of the Cement Museum tell about the events that took place in Novorossiysk during the Second World war. In the Eastern district of the city, in the middle of cement factories, there was a line of defense. German troops tried to pass along the coast to the Soviet ports on the Black sea, but they did not go further than Tsemes Bay. For more than a year, from August 1942 to September 1943, very fierce battles were fought here.
In the Technological Hall of the Museum, elements of modern equipment used for cement production are presented. Also here you can see the memorial apartment of the writer Fyodor Gladkov, who worked in the cement factories of Novorossiysk and wrote the novel "Cement".
