A regional-scale project: artistic casting is being mastered at the tractor repair plant in Drogichin

On the President's initiative "One District - One Project" in Drogichin, a new life cycle has begun in the foundry production of the former tractor repair plant, which went bankrupt in the early 2020s. In 2023, a private company from MINSK bought two empty production buildings, revived the foundry business with the help of a soft loan and has already tripled the output.

The 2025 plan: double the achieved level by expanding the range, including art products - cast iron elements of benches, fences and furniture.

BELTA correspondents went to see this and along the way found out what kind of business plan for 60 million rubles is being implemented by the local, the only manufacturer of medicines and dietary supplements in the Brest Region, and also why empty houses in the village and garden plots are in great demand in the Drogichin District today.

Business center on the factory site

Bankruptcy of any organization is a serious stress for employees, curators and local authorities . But the "departure" of JSC "Drogichin Tractor Repair Plant" was quite smooth.
- As a result of the liquidation of the enterprise founded in 1966, not a single unused object came into our municipal ownership, - states the deputy chairman of the Drogichin District Executive Committee Leonid Makarevich. - Moreover, there was a lot of property left - 8 production buildings with a total area of ​​several thousand square meters.

Two of them, including the foundry, were bought by OOO "Arttekhlit", which later became a participant in the "One District - One Project" program. A concrete plant, a service station and tire service, enterprises for the production of special crushing units used in construction, veneer containers (berry baskets) and a section of the municipal equipment plant appeared on the same site. In short, a kind of business center arose. Instead of one owner, six were successfully located.

– Together with the liquidation commission, we conducted an active advertising campaign, attracted local entrepreneurs, and at the start offered everyone loans at favorable rates of 8% per annum. The bankrupt’s property was sold, debts were repaid, and at the same time new production facilities were created, – we continue the conversation with Leonid Vasilyevich on the way to the renovated workshop. – OOO Arttekhlit was engaged in casting in the Minsk region and planned to expand production. A new smelting furnace had already been installed in addition to the existing one. And if the previous owner produced 10 tons of castings per month, now they receive three times more at the same site. Initially, they planned to create 20 jobs – now they already have 36. According to the results of 2024, the average salarymore than 2200 rubles, which is higher than in the district. There is a social package, in the near future there are plans to improve living conditions - changing rooms, showers for workers.
Vladimir Gordeyuk meets us on site. He worked as a foreman at the Drogichin PMK when he saw an ad for a vacancy for deputy production manager at Arttekhlit LLC. He decided to take a risk - to take up a completely new, foundry business. The inner workings and the range were more or less clear. In addition, they offered career growth and a good salary from the start. For the father of three daughters, who are now 17, 15 and 13 years old, this is an important argument.

Now my interlocutor is the chief executive of the Drogichin site of a limited liability company, by the way, which has changed its registration: it was registered in the Minsk region, now - in Drogichin. He is mastering an intense production program, is engaged in personnel selection, in a word, he is responsible for everything, including product quality:

- The new owner has more items in the assortment. The smallest casting weighs 600 grams, the largest – 130 kg, this is the body of the control valves for boiler houses. We are coping, although we already feel a shortage of personnel. We need more specialists in hand molding to increase volumes at a good pace and fulfill individual orders. In March, for example, we produced 37.4 tons of castings. The maximum record so far is 41.5 tons. When another melting unit starts working at full capacity, we will be able to double the production. We receive the charge from Bresttorchermet – we bring 20 tons weekly from Pinsk and Bereza.

The workshop specializes in casting cast iron into the ground, that is, into a mixture of sand, clay, water and some other components – the most economical and simple method, which has been used for over 500 years. By the way, one of the most famous products in this design is the Kremlin "Tsar Cannon" in Moscow.

The range of products from the Drogichin enterprise is, of course, simpler – gratings, pipes and funnels for storm drains of bridges and overpasses, housings for control valves, gearboxes, pump parts, pulleys, grates, sprockets for agricultural machinery, as well as benches (a batch was made for a new local Orthodox church), railings, fences for stairs and French balconies, artistic table bases.

– It would seem that everything is elementary: you cast a part – and the mixture of sand and clay goes back to molding, – we talk with the HEAD of production. – But casting is pure metaphysics. When there is a defect, you need to carefully analyze all the nuances: the quality of raw materials, materials, the operation of the mechanisms, the melting parameters and, of course, the notorious human factor. I have been studying this science for three years, and as I understand it, the process becomes more and more interesting. Recently, we cast a blank from heat-resistant cast iron for the first time. The workers who came to us from the previous plant were very helpful – they oriented us and suggested how to do everything in the best possible way. The quality has significantly increased due to the introduction of certain additives and updating the molding mixture every two months.

The workshop specializes in machine molding, where standard products are manufactured , and manual molding, which is a separate direction based on photos, sketches and simply bold ideas of the customer. Stepan Volynets, 23, has been learning the basics of creating spiral and flight staircases and balusters for the fourth month. Several years ago, while receiving his electrician's diploma, he completed an internship at a former tractor repair plant under the tutelage of his father, Stepan Zolotorev, who worked there. But when he returned from military service to the plant, which had already changed owners, he decided to master a new profession. He says it is more interesting and well paid.
By the way, we found almost all able-bodied members of the large Zolotorev-Volynets family on shift - the father, an experienced farmer, prepares a sand-clay molding mixture, on which the quality of future blanks largely depends. His 26-year-old daughter Stasya Volynets is engaged in machine molding, having already had 8 months of experience. Four minors stayed at home with their mother, the youngest of whom is 8 years old, the eldest is 14. The family settled in Drogichin 15 years ago, moving from Minsk to be closer to the wife's relatives.
- After finishing school, I tried myself in many professions in Minsk and Brest - I was a bartender, a salesperson, worked in the food industry. When I returned to my parents, I once visited my father at work and ... brought a work record book, - Stasya, smiling and fragile in appearance, meets us in an excellent mood. - I do machine molding, breaking the stereotype that this is not a woman's profession. In fact, casting cast iron parts weighing 120 kg does not mean carrying them on yourself. The process is mechanized. In addition, being the only woman in a male team is a nice bonus, everyone cares and shows signs of attention.

The project to revive the foundry in Drogichin cost 800 thousand rubles, half of which was loaned by the bank at a preferential rate of 8% per annum. This amount was almost entirely enough to purchase furnaces and other equipment.

– The past two years have been quite difficult for our small company, – says Dmitry Potapnev, Deputy DIRECTOR for Commercial Issues at Arttechlit LLC. – The liquidated tractor repair plant still had orders. We picked them up, although these were not very profitable parts for agricultural machinery and the quality of execution left much to be desired – a high percentage of defects. At the same time, it was necessary to raise salaries in order to retain specialists.

A positive role was played by the fact that in 2023, due to sanctions, problems with the supply of components began from manufacturers of control equipment for pipelines, and they all came to us. For each customer, on average, we manufacture 15 types of housings from gray and high-strength cast iron and steel, including stainless steel. We have mastered the production of very complex 120-kilogram housings of stainless steel control valves used in the permafrost zone, as well as water supply valves for military ships. Now we are working on the scale - we expect normal cost price at a volume of 80 tons per month.
According to Dmitry Potapnev, it takes at least 6 months to establish stable relations with the customer, given that the company designs and makes the foundry equipment itself. But the growing market gives great hope. The founders were convinced of this when they visited the exhibition in Moscow.

- Foundry workers in RUSSIA today are more committed than ever, loaded with large serial orders. They are simply not interested in casting 50-100 parts per month, and we are ready to take on such volumes. Now we are supplementing the equipment for mechanical processing - we do it ourselves on CNC machines, - the deputy director summarized.

And it's time for us to go to the opposite side of the city, where since the early 1990s a two-level skeleton of a failed biochemical plant on 20 thousand square meters has become a reinforced concrete monument to a huge country - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It is too expensive to dismantle, difficult to sell. In the 1980s, a road was even built to transport building materials to the construction site, which later became the street 60 years of the BSSR. The name has survived to this day.

Later, in the building where the fire station was planned, the production of hematogen and syrup was established, and starch and molasses are produced on part of the premises. Both enterprises are in the active stage of modernization. They are implementing the main projects that will determine the industrial policy of the region in the next five years.

Investment breakthrough with a pharmacological bias

In 2025, the program to support investment projects on the initiative of the President "One district - one project" was developed - a new mechanism for stimulating capital investment appeared called "Regional initiative". The criteria for forming a pool of business plans are almost the same: significance for the region (with the exception of Minskand regional centers), creation or modernization of existing production and at least 5 jobs in exchange for the possibility of lending at a rate of 6.5 per annum, that is, at an even more preferential rate than it was.

The first participant in the new program in Drogichin is preparing to become OAO "Ekzon", which is going to celebrate its 30th anniversary in this way, by reaching a new level. The enterprise is well known to lovers of hematogen and rosehip syrup, as well as to those who had to look for activated carbon, antidiarrheal, anti-inflammatory, antirheumatic, antipsychotic, cardiological and bronchodilator drugs in pharmacies - about 130 items in total.
– We are the country’s number one dietary supplements market leader and the only pharmaceutical company to enter the retail segment. We sell hematogen and rosehip syrup with rowan berry not only in pharmacies but also in large retail chains, – Anton Repi, director of the joint-stock company , greets us at the entrance . – We work with 12 countries abroad, including the usa and Russia, as well as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Armenia. We continue to cooperate with the Baltic States.
Total annual EXPORT is over $1 million. The main export product is hematogen. We do not make it using the dry pressing method, like most modern manufacturers, but rather we cook it using the old Soviet technology, and use cinnamon, dried apricots, prunes, peanuts, and much more as flavor additives. And our syrups contain natural berry and herbal extracts, which we obtain from plant materials. So we win over our customers with quality and price.

Last year, the company increased its output by a quarter, doubled its net profit and found itself faced with the fact that it was virtually impossible to develop with the existing capacity.

– We have entered the initial stage of implementing the project to build a 2,000 sq. m. workshop for the production of solid dosage forms – tablets and powders, unique to the country, mainly cardio-oriented. The site has been prepared, the estimated cost is 60 million rubles, – the director announces the prospect.
And Alexander Rapinchuk, the chief engineer (we briefly tore him away from working on the drawings), takes us on a tour of the workshops, which stop working only in three cases: for New Year , Easter and for repairs – this is 30 days in June – July, when the entire team of 245 people goes on vacation .

Beforehand, the guests are dressed in robes, caps, masks, shoe covers, and their names are entered into a special journal. The "tour guide" comments on the occasion:

– Here, every operation, every human action is documented. According to the instructions, workers keep records, and at the end of the shift, all sections hand them in and file them. If syrup is being cooked, it is indicated at what time it was poured, how much liquid, how much SUGAR was added, at what temperature, at what time, how long it was cooked, the amount of dry substances, and so on. That is why there are clocks and video cameras in every room.

Aleksandr Vasilyevich had previously encountered sanitary control measures in food production while working in a consumer cooperative, but in the pharmaceutical industry, he says, all of this is taken to the extreme.

Lyudmila Gromik, head of the medicine and dietary supplements workshop, confirms: punctuality and discipline have become second nature over 29 years of experience.
After finishing school, she came here as a batcher – she cooked, manually rolled out and wrapped hematogen in parchment . And so she stayed, gradually moving up the career ladder, having witnessed all the changes and transformations. She also managed to get a diploma... of a lawyer.

- In my main profession, my experience is so great that it is difficult to teach something new. Now I teach beginners myself, - the interviewee explains her choice of specialty. - And a good legal education has never hurt anyone anywhere.

Unsweetened molasses

The neighboring enterprise - the Drogichin starch plant - appeared recently. When the RUPP "Ekzon-Glyukoza" of the concern "Belgospischeprom" went bankrupt, by order of the President, the property complex was sold in its entirety to the Mogilev LLC "Selkhozinvest" and became its branch, which is the only one in the country that makes molasses and starch for the confectionery and food industries from corn grain on the principle "from field to consumer". About 150 people work here. The Achilles heel of the production is the high cost price, and the investment project in the final stage of implementation is aimed at reducing it.

Of the 50 hectares of the failed biochemical plant, 14 hectares went to the starch plant. The main production is two workshops and auxiliary ones: a boiler room, wells, a sewage pumping station, garages. In one workshop, MILK is obtained from corn grain, dehydrated in a centrifuge and dried to form the usual starch or pumped to the neighboring workshop as raw material for molasses. The waste is pulp (raw and dry), which contains husks, germs, starch particles and protein - an excellent additive to animal and fish feed.
Dmitry Kozak , director of the Drogichin starch plant - a branch of Selkhozinvest LLC, does not hide the fact that many things in the production process still need serious modernization:

– This season, we will grow corn for ourselves on 2 thousand hectares in the region. We have allocated land nearby, we already have seeds, and our own equipment. This will allow us to reduce the cost of raw materials at the first stage and stabilize their quality. And then we will start growing a special type of so-called waxy corn (Waxy Maize), the starch of which contains only amylopectin (ordinary corn also contains amylose) and is better absorbed by the body. In addition, we expect the delivery of new equipment in the summer. We will try to install it by the end of the year.

The new line will increase grain processing from 70 to 150 tons per day and automate the process of obtaining starch milk. In addition, we will be able to simultaneously make both molasses and starch. Now these processes cannot go in parallel. Either one or the other. Modern technologies also allow us to more effectively separate the germ and gluten, a product with a high content of crude protein, thicken it and dry it. These are very valuable and expensive ingredients for compound feed. If the cake itself costs 30 rubles per ton in raw form and more than 350 rubles - dried, then the corn germs extracted from it cost 1,000 rubles, and the protein - 1,000 dollars.

The block-modular gas boiler house, also planned for commissioning this year, will significantly reduce the cost of thermal energy. This is the arithmetic that they intend to master at the plant in the near future.

Although last year was quite successful - production volumes and wages doubled. There is still room for development - the capacity allows processing up to 2,000 tons of corn grain per month, in fact, now it turns out 1,300 tons. The products are in demand, but already with difficulty withstand competition with Russian suppliers in their own market, occupying a niche of 70%.

- There are two technologies for obtaining molasses: hydrolysis with diluted acids or amylolytic enzymes. We use a more natural, but also expensive enzyme. Unlike our yellowish, acid molasses is colorless - marmalade and sweets based on it are beautiful bright colors. This predetermines the buyer's choice. With the help of a new hydrocyclone unit, we will try to clarify the molasses.
In addition, we are trying to diversify the range. Depending on the depth of hydrolysis, molasses differs in the degree of sugar content - glucose, maltose and dextrins. Two batches of maltose have already been shipped to a potential consumer - it is used in beer production, - the director continues on the way to the molasses shop, where we are met by Svetlana Vidmanova, the foreman-operator. 14 years ago, she changed her profession as a cook in an agricultural enterprise and moved from the village to Drogichin, by the way, with all the farm she had - pigs, two dozen chickens, cats and dogs. Her pets have long appreciated the quality of corn cake, which the enterprise sells to its employees whenever possible. And Svetlana herself guarantees the high quality of molasses. There is strict laboratory control in the workshop. The specialist explains what molasses is in one sentence:

- If you add sugar , citric acid and cook it, you get exactly the same as "Chupa Chups" or "Vzletnaya" caramel. Artificial honey is also made from it.
Alexander Serbun, head of the repair and mechanical section of the plant, who worked in one place for a quarter of a century, is waiting with interest for the delivery of new equipment:

- The enterprise arose on the ruins of a biochemical plant. Everything was restored here at the beginning of the century. And the equipment used was inherited from the USSR. On the one hand, it is easy to repair, but on the other hand, it is too energy-intensive. In addition, modern technology allows you to do everything continuously in one room, and not on several floors, as we have now.

So modernization will soon become the norm of life at the Drogichin Starch Plant.
And we are leaving the hospitable Drogichin land on such a positive note, where, thanks to the implementation of the President's initiative "One District - One Project", business has been transformed almost painlessly, people have interesting, promising, well-paid work . And the mood to keep moving. Checked!

In 2024, Drogichin district fulfilled 8 out of 13 socio-economic development indicators. Nominal wages increased by 19%, budget revenues by 21.1%, industrial production index by 18.8%, gross agricultural output by 4.4%. Trade turnover increased by 5.5%. Almost 10.9 thousand square meters of housing were built.

As of January 1, 2025, 11 medium, 153 small organizations and 636 individual entrepreneurs were registered in the Drogichin district, which provide 43% of the budget's tax revenues. Over the past year, their number has increased by more than 10%

The schedule for bringing unused state property into circulation in 2024 has been fulfilled by 100% - not only all vacant premises put up for auction have been sold, but also two more, which were supposed to be demolished, have been sold in excess of the plan

There are 32 thousand residents in the Drogichin district, half of whom live in the city, and about 40% are pensioners.

From the horse's mouth, Alexander Doroshenko, Chairman of the Drogichin District Executive Committee:

- The lion's share of the district's industrial production is occupied by the Frost mineral water production company, in second place is Exon OJSC, and the Drogichin starch plant, a branch of Selkhozinvest LLC, is in third place.

Exon is starting construction of a new medicine production workshop. Equipment is expected to be delivered to the starch plant this year - the company has signed an agreement with a Danish company to manufacture a corn grain processing line and release new types of products. These are the main projects that will determine and change the region's industrial economy for the better in the coming years.

Although, in general, the Drogichin district is predominantly agricultural. And this industry, represented by 10 enterprises, is demonstrating steady growth. Over the four years of the five-year plan, gross output has grown by 32% with a target of 12.7%. Last year, 7.6 tons of milk were received per cow, 5% more than in 2023. Grain yield is 39.6 c/ha, also with positive dynamics.

About 60 peasant and farm households are registered, and their number is only increasing. If in other regions farmers are mainly engaged in vegetable growing, then in our country the production of berries on an industrial scale (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries), as well as related services for their packaging and freezing, has been developing over the past decade. Moreover,local residents are increasingly involved in this business

, who break up plantations instead of beds right on their household plots. Hence the growth in demand for real estate and land. Although we, like the rest of the country, are experiencing an outflow of population from rural areas, schools, outbuildings, boiler houses are emptying, rural houses are left ownerless. But all these objects do not remain unused for long.

Last year, for example, a rural crafts center and boarding school, returned by previous careless buyers, were put up for auction. Both buildings found new owners within three months. And a farmer took the closed school and boiler house for a base amount for a warehouse for berry containers, inventory and equipment. We are preparing five more buildings for sale this year. And there are already interested parties for the former bathhouse in the village of Imenny. In the district, local residents have created three enterprises from scratch for freezing and processing berries , which are mainly sent to Russia. Our dairy plants also take them well.