150 exhibits are presented at the exhibition "Unichel". How shoes are born""in the Museum and Exhibition Center of the Historical Museum of the Southern Urals, dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the enterprise.

Samples of products from all factories of the Chelyabinsk region that were part of the association, sketches of models, blanks, shoe pads of different years, sewing equipment, awards, archival photographs are exhibited here.

The beginning of the factory was given by the order of the Management of the Regional Office "Kozhsnabsbyt" on the organization of a workshop for sewing shoes by hand. In the 1950s, several workshops and artels united the Chelyabinsk Shoe Factory into one enterprise. And in 1968, a factory building familiar to everyone appeared in new neighborhoods in the Northwest, where modern, including imported, equipment was installed. During these years, a whole association emerged, which, in addition to the main enterprise in Chelyabinsk, included Kyshtym, Zlatoust, Troitskaya and Magnitogorsk factories. In the Soviet years, the association was the 5th in the country in terms of production volumes: 12 million pairs were produced per year, products were sold in 55 regions of the country and even exported. In 1981, the association was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

Chelyabinsk shoe factory has survived the difficult years of post-Soviet reforms, and today "Unichel" a recognized Russian leader in the production of genuine leather shoes. Every year, factories located in Chelyabinsk, Zlatoust and Orenburg produce more than 3 million pairs under the brand "Unichel", which are sold throughout the country from Vladivostok to Moscow. The company's network includes 550 stores in Russia and Kazakhstan.

«Probably, no one will argue that the "Unichel" factory played a role in the life of Chelyabinsk and in the history of the region, therefore, together with the museum, we tried to collect and restore by the anniversary date what was once made at the factory by the hands of our craftsmen. We looked through a lot of archival materials, photographs, newspaper files and selected all the most interesting things for each period of history.

Head of the Brand Development Department of JSC "Unichel", Ekaterina Zheleznyakova

«The exhibition presents quite rare exhibits - these are reference samples of shoes of the 30s, 60s, 70s, which, by the way, have not lost their relevance today. Samples of the material are attached to special labels, which explain how ideally this or that model should look, what colors can be used as a replacement, " said the head of the museum's exhibition department, Anastasia Voronina.

Visitors of the exhibition are waiting for the opening. For example, modern stylish brogues made of maroon leather with a gradient, which were produced in Kyshtym… 50 years ago. At the stand with the products of the Magnitogorsk factory, you can see bright shoes and sandals, in which more than one generation of South Ural residents ran to kindergarten. Modern samples of shoes for the youngest were decorated with a "miracle tree", as if descended from the pages of fairy tales by Korney Chukovsky.

The exhibition will last until November 12, 2017. 

Photo: « Unichel» and < span style="color:#A9A9A9;">shutterstock.com