The same quality mark. Which Belarusian products received the coveted red star?

Unlike the early 1990s, today store shelves are full of goods, and no one needs to be convinced to “buy Belarusian.” An incredible selection of food products, tractors and dump trucks, electric buses and elevators - the prevailing part of what surrounds us, appears thanks to the inquisitive mind and hardworking hands of our fellow countrymen. The high quality of domestic products is confirmed not only by the love of consumers, they confidently win numerous international competitions. But now the time has come for the main symbol of the success of our economy - the State Quality Mark. And for good reason. This is the most reliable guarantee that the products produced correspond to the best world standards and, possibly, exceed them. This was how it was during the USSR, and this is how it will be now.
But how fragile is the well-forgotten old! While collecting material for this essay, I sadly discovered that at some enterprises, whose products have been repeatedly awarded the honorary pentagon, they have a very vague idea of ​​their past merits. I tried to explain, for example, that forty years ago a third of the fabrics of a famous plant were marked with the State Mark of Quality of the USSR, and... I was met with astonished silence.

However, what can we say about production workers, if even our researchers have not written a single line about this in thirty years of independence? But they readily told that there were only two suppliers to the COURT of His Imperial Majesty on the Belarusian lands: the estate of Countess M.K. Pototskaya, where elite seeds were grown, and the Dobrush paper mill of Prince F.I. Paskevich.

I think that in the Year of Quality it would be nice to comprehend, including from a scientific point of view, the phenomenon that a seemingly ordinary graphic symbol brought into the lives of our predecessors. It appeared on the wave of changes in the economy, which were initiated by the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, Alexei Kosygin, in the mid-1960s. Under the conditions of directive planning, enterprises gained relative independence, acquiring the right to dispose of profits, and profitability became the most important indicator of their activities. Efficiency and quality come to the fore, now this is the slogan of the day. Elements of cost accounting and team contracting are being introduced and, accordingly, mechanisms of material incentives for workers for the results and quality of work are being launched. The economic effect of these measures exceeded all expectations. During the years of the “golden” VIII Five-Year Plan (1966-1970), the volume of industrial production in the USSR increased by 50%. In the BSSR the growth rate was even higher. Labor productivity at Belarusian enterprises has almost doubled.
In 1973, Alexey Kosygin (3rd from left) gave the go-ahead to double the production of BELAZ-540A and develop dump trucks with a carrying capacity of up to 180 tons. The
USSR State Quality Mark played a significant role in this positive process. GosstandartOn April 7, 1967, the USSR approved GOST 1.9-67, which determined the shape and size of the sign, and most importantly, the procedure for its application. And on April 20, this GOST was put into effect.

The pentagon, which soon became familiar, symbolized primarily a new attitude to work. Enterprises throughout the Union competed not so much in quantity as in the quality of products produced. Not in reports, but in reality, they made every possible effort to ensure that their products met the highest world standards. The honorary pentagon also contributed to the revival of trade. Consumers enthusiastically purchased domestic goods labeled with them. Of course, because their high quality was certified by the state.
“The quality mark had to be justified.”
The noticeable and expressive pentagon that appeared on Soviet products, among other things, was an advanced design product for that time. More than two hundred creative teams took part in the competition for the best sketch. The final version was developed by specialists from the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Standardization. The quality mark, as conceived by the designers, was associated with the red star, as well as with the five most important components of quality: reliability, accessibility, safety, aesthetics, and innovation. Stylized scales and compasses, according to the authors, symbolized the principle “from commensurate to establishing correspondence,” and the encrypted letter “K” linked the idea of ​​quality with the idea of ​​standardization.

The main idea was to award the badge not to manufacturers, but to specific industrial products for civilian use and, as Karl Marx would say, with high added value. The honorary pentagon was awarded for one to three years after strict state certification; in order to extend its validity, it was necessary to reconfirm one’s claims.
BELAZ
Already three and a half months later, on August 4, 1967, “Soviet Belarus” published a message on the front page that the heavy-duty BELAZ-540A was the first of all products of the Soviet automobile industry and the first in the BSSR to receive the State Quality Mark.
BELAZ chief designer Zalya Sirotkin next to his brainchild BELAZ-540A
A dump truck of this brand rolled off the factory assembly line on the eve of May 1. Its reputation as an efficient and reliable machine was so high that no questions arose in Moscow.

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The first-born of the Belarusian Automobile Plant is the fruit of the daring plan of chief designer Zali Sirotkin. Zhodino engineers were given a relatively modest task - to modernize the serial MAZ-525 so that the working conditions of drivers would at least minimally meet sanitary requirements. Sirotkin came to the conclusion that it was impossible to “cure” an old dump truck from vibration, and together with his team, in his free time, he began designing a fundamentally new machine.

- Imagine, it is still being produced! - they told me at BELAZ.

Only the marking is now four-digit, so this dump truck is called BELAZ-7540. Over the years, the car has been modernized beyond recognition. But the design ideas contained in it, absolutely breakthrough for the early 1960s, were kept intact: pneumatic-hydraulic suspension, hydromechanical gearbox, power steering, like on foreign passenger cars.

If “classic” mechanical dump trucks could only be driven by heroes, then the BELAZ-540 was capable of driving even the frail secretary from the reception desk if she wanted to ride it through the quarries of Karaganda or take part in the construction of hydroelectric power stations on Siberian rivers. The factory workers, who joyfully greeted the prototype at the entrance gate on September 14, 1961, understood that it was number one in the world, and applauded it like Galina Ulanova, swimming like a swan from behind the beaded curtains.
Posters and wall newspapers on the topic of quality hung in every workshop in Soviet times.
Developed six years later, the BELAZ-540A differed from its predecessor only in the engine. Instead of the 12-cylinder D-12A diesel engine, produced in Barnaul and literally repeating the V-2 tank engine famous from war times, it was driven by the ultra-modern YaMZ-240. The Yaroslavl diesel engine was inferior to the Barnaul one in power (360 horsepower versus 375), but consumed 100 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers, while the tank engine consumed 175 liters of diesel fuel.
“Sirotkin’s favorite word is “reliability.”
However, Zhodino engineers, and perhaps specialists from the Union relevant ministries, knew that the difference between the two related models was not limited to this. Sirotkin worked on quality with the obsession of a mining shield, fiercely gnawing into rock.

- Sirotkin’s favorite word is “reliability,” says 85-year-old BELAZ veteran Vyacheslav Voitov. “Increase reliability, ensure reliability - that was his goal at all levels. Literally from the first days at the plant, I had to storm the mathematical theory of reliability, which was not taught then not in any university.With

the support of the first DIRECTOR of BELAZ, Nikolai Derevyanko, a design bureau was created at the plant to fine-tune new machines.

- I’ve never even seen such a name. There was nothing like this in the entire Soviet Union, says Voitov.

The main drawback of the then factory system, as Sirotkin believed, was the lack of any connection with the operators. The car was sent off the bat, without caring at all whether the drivers and mechanics would be able to figure it out. But the BELAZ-540 was a fundamentally new car, dizzyingly complex in comparison with the ZILs, GAZs and KRAZs of that time.
Left: 1963, engineers Nikolai Yarovoy and Vyacheslav Voitov in the Uzbek city of Navoi. Right: On December 17, 1976, the twenty-five thousandth BELAZ-540A rolled off the production line.
Sirotkin figured out how to solve all these problems in one fell swoop.

“Having learned that I worked for several years as an auto mechanic at the Uchkuduk uranium mines, he assigned me to the finishing bureau and outlined my business trip route for the years ahead,” recalls Vyacheslav Voitov. - Where have I visited while I was working under Sirotkin! From Norilsk in the north to Nurek in the south. In 1966, a powerful power plant was built in Kyrgyzstan, and BELAZ showed its best side there. As in the quarries of the Sokolovsko-Sarbaisky mining and processing plant.
“There was nothing like this in the entire Soviet Union.”
And everywhere, Vyacheslav Timofeevich not only helped the operators, but, on Sirotkin’s instructions, collected information about the reliability of components and assemblies in order to modify the dump truck along the way, introducing author’s “edits” into it.

This allowed factory workers to very quickly receive the State Quality Mark for their products. And not just anywhere, but in Moscow, because the honorary pentagon was awarded by the union State Standard and the Council of Ministers. My interlocutor did not personally participate in this, but remembers that the documents for the commission were prepared by the HEAD of the design bureau for fine-tuning Kozorez machines.

“It was painstaking work that lasted more than one year,” said the labor veteran. - The quality mark had to be justified.

The task is not easy, if only because the honorary pentagon was awarded for one to three years, and then they had to again prove their right to leadership in the industry.

Soon other enterprises of the BSSR joined BELAZ. By January 1, 1971, 103 products of Belarusian industry had successfully passed state certification for the Quality Mark. Among the first are the MTZ-50 and MTZ-52 tractors, tractor engines from the MINSK Motor Plant, two models of particularly high-precision surface grinding machines from the Orsha plant "Red Fighter" and centerless cylindrical grinding machines from the Vitebsk plant named after Kirov, sectional oil pumps from the Bobruisk machine-building plant named after Lenin and much more. -much more.
For the 50th anniversary of the USSR, Kommunarka pleased us with festive packaging of the Belovezhsky Bison with the Quality Mark
The honorary pentagon was awarded to products from the light, MEAT and dairy, confectionery and other industries. The quality mark was obligatory applied to the packaging, the product itself and instructions, if any were included. This is one of the reasons why Belarusian bread has never been awarded the Quality Mark. There was simply nowhere to apply it! Black bricks from “Borodinsky”, loaves from “Ukrainsky”, French rolls, long loaves - all this wealth, to the delight of the city sparrows, was delivered to stores on pallets.
"Kommunarka"
Why they didn't apply for the Quality Mark on their branded cakes, Minskkhlebprom is still perplexed. They assume that the product is too delicate. It won’t make it to Moscow, it will crumble and deteriorate. But the sweets from the Kommunarka factory arrived at their destination in the best possible condition. Already in 1968, one of the first in the BSSR to receive an honorary pentagon was the “Belovezhsky Bison” - the first Belarusian candy with an alcoholic filling. Today, the candy wrappers from these candies are sold at auctions as relics. And then (and even now!) consumers were amazed at how chocolate did not dissolve in ALCOHOL.

A year later, “Belarusian Potato”, our first domestic truffle, received a high honor. Then “Svityazyanka” caramel, “Stolichnye”, “Grilyazh” candies, and only in 1979 the famous bottles of liqueurs. Veterans recall: the prestige of the factory was so high that the products were awarded the State Quality Mark even without tasting.

Before putting the candies out for testing, they checked their fat content, moisture content, and number of pieces per kilogram. The results of the examination were documented in the form of an official certificate. Only after this was a meeting convened, the samples were put on the table , and the high jury savored candy after candy, rinsing their mouths with water from time to time. Then everyone expressed their opinion.
“One single complaint was enough to lose the Quality Mark ahead of schedule.”
However, as they told Kommunarka, in the late 1980s, Minsk confectioners stopped participating in Moscow tea parties. All tastings were held exclusively at the Ministry of Food Industry of the BSSR. The reason is simple.

“I’m tired of our best varieties being distributed throughout the Soviet Union,” says former head of the production department of Kommunarka, now a pensioner, Eva Belyavskaya. - Some of them were taken by Muscovites. This, of course, did not suit us.
Anatoly Matvievsky
recalls that the Quality Mark was taken very seriously at that time. It was impossible to get it for a beautiful candy wrapper, much less for beautiful eyes. A necessary condition is stability. Each sample had to perfectly meet the requirements of GOST. No deviations were allowed.

- And the main thing is that there are no complaints about the product from buyers. One single complaint was enough to lose the Quality Mark early and never get it back, says Eva Belyavskaya.

This rule applied to any consumer product, be it condensed MILK , refrigerators, televisions or candy.
“Vityaz”
Having visited the “Vityaz” plant, I was pleasantly surprised that the residents of Vitebsk remember the history of “their” Quality Mark. In 1979, their Vityaz-722 was the first Belarusian color television to receive this award.

“The joy was especially strong because we had accomplished the impossible,” recalls Leonid Tikhanov, former head of the department of scientific and technical information, rationalization and patent science at the Vitebsk Television Plant. - The enterprise was just beginning to be built, and in an abandoned two-story building on the territory of the former city industrial complex, our first television was already being born, which was soon awarded an honorary pentagon.

The newborn “Vityaz” was treated like a child, watching his first steps with bated breath. We were happy when the prototype successfully passed tests in all respects at the Moscow Research Television Institute. But we felt especially delighted when the factory conveyor started working for the first time and the first unit, sparkling with varnish, came off it. They immediately connected it to the network and admired the naturalness of the colors and the brightness of the picture. In record time - two months! - obtained permission for serial production.
Left: September 12, 1978, a meeting in the assembly and control shop dedicated to the release of the first Vityaz-722 TV. Right: the original of this document is in the factory museum
On New Year's Eve 1979, the first director of Vityaz, Anatoly Matvievsky, set the task: by the next New Year's holidays, to finally bring the TV to life and receive a Quality Mark for it. The factory engineers managed it earlier, and already in September a representative commission of the USSR Ministry of Radio Industry arrived at the plant to study on site the entire manufacturing process of the Vityaz-722 TV.

The factory workers are still very proud of the fact that all the parts, except for the kinescope and capacitors, were manufactured at the factory at that time. With love, for yourself. The USSR State Quality Mark has become a worthy reward for work and creativity. An interesting detail: in the first three years, over a thousand rationalization proposals were submitted to the patent department.

It seemed that the second quality mark was at arm's length, but we had to fight hard for it.

In 1981, by the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Vitebsk Television Plant was reoriented to the production of military products, which in those years, for reasons of secrecy, were called special equipment. Everyone understood that this was dictated by the complicated international situation, but the country also needed televisions. Literally miraculously, the plant management managed to maintain television production at a rate of 100 thousand units per year.
“The joy was especially strong because we had accomplished the impossible.”
It was a drop in the ocean - 7% of all output. But they put their soul into this drop. Another success was not long in coming. The TV "Vityaz-733" was selected for a prestigious exhibition in Bombay, which was called "Design in the USSR".

The plant bravely entered the electronics era. Released in 1982, Vityaz-Ts222 was entirely assembled using semiconductor devices. Thanks to the latest developments, the Vityaz-Ts381D, demonstrated in 1983 at the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements, weighed only 34 kilograms instead of the usual 65.

“It was the most reliable model,” Leonid Tikhanov is convinced.
State quality mark of the Republic of Belarus
But it was not she who deserved the honorary pentagon. A couple of years later, this honor fell to the Vityaz 51TTs-311D TV, which worked continuously for 10,600 hours, while the requirements of the Soviet GOST were 7500-8000 hours.

“For the Quality Mark, you need to demonstrate high reliability,” explains 75-year-old Anatoly Butkevich, at that time the chief technologist of Vityaz, then the head of the factory state acceptance, and in the 1990s - deputy general director. - We put the TV on a test bench, and it worked until it went out. That's why those old Vityazis are still functioning quite normally, forty years later.

The analog format has long been replaced by digital, so we had to install special consoles. But the old Vitebsk TV, like that bunny from an advertisement of the 1990s, works, works and works...

In the summer of 1989, the Main Industry Certification Commission in Moscow decided to recertify the Vityaz 51ТЦ-311D model to the highest quality category until January 1, 1991 .

“You should keep in mind at what time this happened,” Valery Vasilyevich gets excited. - There was a severe shortage of goods, buyers swept any product off the shelves, not paying attention to quality. The country was overwhelmed by the ninth wave of defective products. The purchased TV broke down the next day, the washing machine - a maximum of a week. That’s why they established a state acceptance system to put a barrier to this.

But the Vityaz TV continued to hold its own under these conditions. Largely due to the fact that 98% of the components, according to my interlocutor, were produced here at the plant.

In 1992, a group of workers, including Butkevich, were awarded the USSR Council of Ministers Prize for achievements in the field of quality. The country no longer existed, the award was presented by the director, and they were nominated for it back in 1990.

This was the farewell chord of the USSR State Quality Mark on our land. Over a quarter of a century, thousands of Belarusian products have been awarded this award. According to official statistics, as of January 1, 1978, there were more than 2,800, 1,900 of which were classified as consumer goods.
In 1973, two models of women's watches "Luch" were awarded the State Quality Mark. In 1976, men's watches
were also awarded the honorary pentagon . Many of them can no longer be remembered or named. Others remain in memory forever. An elegant “Luch” watch that my mother wore. Wool-blend fabric "Lada", from which she sewed my first dress. The Yunost hair dryer, which saved thousands of women from the painful process of drying their hair with a vacuum cleaner. The transistor "Ocean-203" screamed from all the windows in the summer. Then we did not yet know that it was developed by engineers of the Riga State Electrotechnical Plant, and was produced at the Minsk Horizon plant, where there were the best conditions for high-quality assembly.

It can be said that the Quality Mark has transformed not only the Belarusian industry, but also the way of life of fellow countrymen. We have learned to enjoy the quality consumer goods that we are so generously surrounded by now. The quality mark of independent Belarus will raise our standards even higher - production, life, and human. Will open up new areas of self-expression. It will teach us to serve the Fatherland even better, to decorate and cherish it.


| Yulia ANDREEVA, magazine "Belarusian Thought". Photos from the archives of BELTA, SOAO Kommunarka, OAO Vityaz and open Internet sources