Among the oil workers of Tatarstan (1959)

A stream of oil spurts from a pipe, oil workers congratulate each other on the start of a new well.

Faces of oil workers.

Oil pours from a pipe.

Newsreel from 1944: the first oil wells in the Tatar ASSR. Women work at oil wells.

Oil workers from Baku and Grozny work at an oil field, faces of oil workers.

The process of drilling a well.

Newspaper articles about oil fields discovered in Tatarstan.

View of one of the first wells in Tatarstan, oil production equipment in operation.

Panorama of one of the oil fields (above).

Views of drilling rigs at the Romashkinskoye oil field.

Panorama and views of one of the oil storage facilities at the Romashkinskoye field (above).

Panorama of part of the oil workers' settlement (above).

Meeting with drilling foreman M.P. Grin, Grin's face.

View of the hall of the oil workers' meeting to exchange experience in Moscow.

Faces of the meeting participants.

Grin speaking from the podium, the meeting participants listening to Grin's speech.

Oil rig with New Year's illumination.

Grin and members of his team make calculations at their workplace.

View of the oil rig in summer.

The process of drilling a well, members of Grin's team at work.

Lowering and raising the drill bit.

Grin's face.

View of the team's trailer.

Grin sits down by the telephone inside the trailer.

Comparative graph of the socialist competition of Grin's and Gimazov's teams.

Grin and Gimazov talk to each other on the phone.

Drillers at work.

The process of cementing a well at Gimazov's drilling rig.

View of part of the drilling rig territory.

The new drilling rig of Gimazov's team.

Meeting of drillers of Gimazov's and Grin's teams.

Gimazov's face.

Handing over the completed well by Gimazov's team.

Gimazov inspects the new drilling rig.

Transportation of the assembled drilling rig by towing with crawler tractors.

The foreman of the rig assemblers A.G. Timchenko at the site of the rig being transported.

Timchenko's face giving signals to tractor drivers, tractors towing a rig.

Rig crossing a water obstacle.

Timchenko on the rig platform.

The tractors stop.

Timchenko approaches one of the tractors and gives instructions to the driver.

Timchenko lights a cigarette at a rest stop, talks about the features of transporting assembled drilling rigs (synchronously).

Testing new drilling equipment.

Operation of an automatic key for connecting and disconnecting drill pipes.

View of an original axial pump for feeding mortar.

View of one of the experimental drilling rigs.

Reduced-diameter drilling bit for a small-sized drilling rig.

Preparing the drilling bit for work.

Checking the bit gears.

The bit is lowered into the well.

View of the new experimental drilling rig (from bottom to top).

Panorama of part of the rig equipment.

View of the drilling rig.

View of oil product storage tanks.

Oil worker K.A. Valiev driving a car.

Valiev driving to an oil field.

Valiev’s arrival at one of the wells.

Valiev shares his experience with a young oil worker, operator Mananov.

Valiev’s face.

Valiev and his son-in-law, engineer Polyubay, are walking down the street of Almetyevsk and discussing a production problem, with Valiev’s family members walking nearby.

Faces of Valiev’s family members.

Faces of Valiev’s young grandchildren.

Views of Almetyevsk streets and buildings.

Faces of oil workers Mananov and Chanyshev.

Mananov and Chanyshev are talking with Valiev and his family members on a city street.

Valiev’s face.

Signboard of the Tatar Evening Faculty of the Moscow Institute of Petrochemical and Gas Industry.

Students of the faculty in one of the classrooms during a class.

The teacher is explaining the subject at the blackboard, the students’ faces.

Oil students are playing volleyball on a sports ground.

A class in the fine arts studio.

Performance of the folk ensemble of oil workers on the stage of one of the workers' clubs.

A young man lies on the hay with a book on his chest.

Summer landscape.

Young people walk in the park in the evening.

Oil field operator Chanyshev goes in the rain to the night shift, walks around the wells to check their work.

Chanyshev checks the operation of the equipment in the pouring rain.

Engineers at the oil field solve a production issue.

Faces of engineers, discussion of the schedule of well inspections.

Engineers, accompanied by Chanyshev, inspect the equipment of the well.

Chanyshev's face.

Chanyshev and the foreman of the mechanical workshop G. Romanov while working on Chanyshev's rationalization proposal.

Automatic shut-off valve in Chanyshev's hands.

Production process in the workshop.

Installation of the automatic shut-off valve designed by Chanyshev on the equipment.

Chanyshev installs a shut-off valve of his own design on the well.

Checking the operation of the automatic shut-off valve.

Chanyshev watches the shut-off valve work, Chanyshev's face.

View of one of the oil fields.

Panorama of a section of automatic equipment for monitoring the operation of an oil field.

The dispatcher identifies an emergency well based on a signal from the machine.

A meeting in the office of the head of the Oil Department of the Tatar Economic Council V.D. Shashchin, Shashin's face.

Faces of the meeting participants, view of a section of the automated oil field project.

The meeting participants discuss the project documentation.

Shashin talks about the greater amount of oil produced in the oil fields of Tatarstan per worker than in the USA, compares the work of Soviet and American oil workers, and about the prospects of Tatar oil workers by the end of the seven-year plan (synchronously).

A train with oil tank cars passes.

Panorama of a section of the equipment at one of the stations of the Almetyevsk-Gorky main oil pipeline.

Shadow of a flying helicopter.

A helicopter approaching to land.

The pilot in the helicopter cockpit.

Repairmen inspect the oil pipeline route from above.

Welding one of the seams of the oil pipeline.

Pulling the oil pipeline across the Kama River.

Drilling foreman Gubaidullin talks to geologist Musin.

Geologists work at future oil fields, searching for samples.

Text of the telegram to the 21st Congress of the CPSU on the discovery of the Zainsk oil field.

Oil workers run to the well.

Oil pours out of the pipe.

Drillers examine oil samples.

Gubaidullin and Musin discuss the results of geological exploration.

Transportation of the drilling rig by water.

A passenger ship passes.

People wave their hands from the side of the ship.

Towing the rig across the water.