Nizhny Tagil

Nizhny Tagil grew around the Demidov family's metallurgical works in the Urals. Ore discoveries near Mount Vysokaya and the Vyya River at the turn of the eighteenth century drew attention to the district. The Vyya works produced its first pig iron in 1722, a date taken as the settlement's foundation; the Nizhny Tagil works followed with its first pig iron in 1725. Iron and copper from the Demidov enterprises became known under the Old Sable mark.

Mines and works were organized into the Nizhny Tagil industrial district in 1807. Alongside metallurgy, local crafts included the painted metal trays for which Tagil became renowned. The serf mechanics Yefim and Miron Cherepanov, father and son, built early Russian steam locomotives here in the 1830s. Their work grew out of the technical demands of the mining district, where furnaces, workshops and transport linked the ore deposits to the factory settlements.