The collection of the Zheleznodorozhny Local Lore Museum contains a shtof pitcher called “Rooster”.
The pitcher was created based on the design by the sculptor and artist Olga Mikhailovna Bogdanova. The bright, colorful works of this wonderful master are filled with poetic sentiment. The shtof pitcher “Rooster” is no exception: underglaze painting was applied by hand using a bright color palette; the colors range from green and brown at the bottom to bright red and yellow at the top.
Such items were produced at the Kirov Faience Factory from 1966 to 1981, as evidenced by the mark on the product. The first enterprise, which later served as the basis for the faience production of the Kirov plant, was founded by Afanasy Goncharov, who built the Nizhne-Pesochensky hammer plant in 1752. Subsequently, in 1853, Ivan Akimovich Maltsov reoriented the hammer plant into the Pesochenskaya Faience Factory. That same year, the first ceramic products were manufactured. The plant had about a hundred employees by the time the ceramic production was launched. In 1899, the Maltsov Factories Joint Stock Company, the owner of the enterprise, leased the Pesochenskaya Faience Factory to Matvey Sidorovich Kuznetsov, an iconic figure in the history of Russian porcelain. In 1911, the entire enterprise became the property of the famous industrialist. Thus, the Pesochenskaya Faience Factory became the last porcelain enterprise acquired by the Kuznetsov dynasty.
In the pre-revolutionary period, the plant produced
bathtubs, urinals, lavatory pans and other sanitary items. In 1937, its name
was changed to the Factory of Constructional Faience. During the Great
Patriotic War, the plant was seriously damaged. It was able to recover from the
ruin and reach the pre-war level of production only in 1947. The technology of
nonsagger firing was mastered in 1956. Advanced manufacturing methods were
introduced at the plant in 1960, and from that moment it was actively
modernized. In 1997, some years after the collapse of the USSR, the plant was
renamed CJSC Kirov Stroyfarfor. Today, the Kirov Ceramics plant is a modern,
dynamically developing enterprise.
