Kushva

Kushva grew at the foot of Mount Blagodat, whose iron ore was brought to official attention in 1735. The Mansi hunter Stepan Chumpin was credited with finding the deposit, and Vasily Tatishchev inspected the exposed ore and planned works nearby. Construction of a dam and furnaces began in 1736; the first blast furnace was lit in 1739. The works passed through private ownership before returning to the Crown in 1763.

Assigned peasants supplied labor under difficult conditions, leading to unrest in the 1760s. By 1797 Kushva had four blast furnaces. Iron was carried along the Goroblagodatsky road to a landing on the Chusovaya, and in 1801 the works became the administrative center of the Goroblagodatsky mining district. Its furnaces continued to develop new techniques, including hot-blast smelting in 1833.