In January 1946, the writer Pavel Petrovich Bazhov registered as a candidate for the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from the Krasnoufimsky electoral district. He went on an almost three-week trip across the district, and visited Polevskoy, Manchazh, Bisert, Nizhniye Sergi and other towns.

The writer also stopped in Arti to visit the local mechanical plant. In the village’s club, the workers of the enterprise presented the deputy with gifts: a homemade wooden tablet, or a board with inserts, demonstrating the process of making a sewing needle, and a small souvenir scythe. The scythe did not have a snath, or a shaft, and was presented in a wooden case lined with red cloth.

The Arti Ironworks is considered the oldest enterprise in the Urals: it was founded in 1787, and started producing scythes in 1809.

The name of the famous Ural metallurgist Pavel Petrovich Anosov was associated with this plant. Bazhov was also interested in his personality. In the 1830s, Anosov worked there to invent the best way to quench metal in order to duplicate the qualities of bulat steel. He also introduced a system to measure the hardness of scythes and monitored the quality of products, thanks to which the Arti tools were highly valued by metropolitan and foreign buyers.

The writer was also fascinated with the history and linguistic traditions of the Mari population of the Urals, who also lived in Arti: “[the people], densely surrounded by the Tatars and Russians, still managed to preserve their national dress, way of life, and language, and even greeted their candidate with musical compositions played on their instruments that are not used anywhere else called shuver and tuber… For the meeting, they composed songs in which, even with a direct rough translation, I felt subtle lyricism. These pagans live in the long-established domain of Islam and Orthodox Christianity, these hardworking farmers allocate over 90 days a year for mainly public holidays, is this not a topic for a tale of mine?”

Unfortunately, Bazhov did not realize his plans.