For half-a-century, the Southern Urals area was a workshop for the Soviet military machine. Plants producing hardware from small arms to heavy-duty trucks, to ballistic missiles, were places to seek employment. After the Soviet Union's collapse they faced

Natalya Shilova is an arms-maker. She tests small arms at the Zlatoust Machinery Plant. Natalya’s lost count of all the weapons she’s fired over the past twelve years.

“I am so tired of it! Sometimes my friends ask me to join them at a rifle range I say ‘No way, I’m tired of shooting!’” she says.

The plant’s history goes from making firearms during World War Two to ballistic missiles for nuclear submarines during the Cold War. It was a top secret place, and an elite one to work at. The shock came when the USSR and its mighty military machine fell apart.

“Back in the Soviet times we knew we had a goal and we had to reach it no matter what – we did overtime, we worked weekends. We though that what we did was important for our country to have weight in the world. Now we don’t know if our plant is of any use anymore. Many people have left,” says Ludmila Zhukova, an engineer at the plant.

Now 56, Ludmila’s been working at the plant since she was 17. Her mother used to work there. Her husband Yuri still does. He says they’ve got nowhere else to go. Their garden and animals help to make ends meet.

Garden and animals help workers make ends meet.

When the crisis hit, the plant in Zlatoust looked for other ways of making money – from picking up on an old local tradition of steel engraving, to making cooking stoves now very popular across the former USSR. But the plant still largely relies on the Defence Ministry’s contracts. A complete makeover is not cost-effective.

“Our technological capacities are huge. You don’t need such technology for civil industry. You can’t make saucepans at a military plant! That means we don’t have enough work – so we waste resources and the cost of our goods goes up,” explains Sergey Lemeshevsky, the plant’s Director General.

It’s a common story for the region. The bulk of the Soviet industry was moved here in the 1940s to flee the advancing Germans. The South Urals became the heart of Soviet military production. Closed off to foreigners, for half a century it thrived on the massive needs of the Soviet military. When the USSR collapsed, life here was shaken to the core.

But some adapted better than others.

Pavel Mamonov spent almost two decades at the Ural Truck Factory located in the town of Miass. At 83 and long retired, he’s still proud to have worked here.

This factory is Russia’s number one off-road truck-maker. Set up in 1941, it made vehicles for the frontline, and after the war ended carried on working for the Soviet armed forces. To survive in post-Soviet Russia, the plant had to forget all about the old ways.

Seventy trucks roll off the plant’s conveyor belts every day.

The new strategy – efficiency above all. The result – production is booming. Still supplying trucks to the military, the factory has largely managed to get onto civil rails. From the oil and gas sector, to the timber and mining industries – its giant vehicles are sold around the globe. Seventy trucks costing about $US 40,000 roll off the plant’s conveyor belts every day.

People in Miass say “When the plant sneezes, the whole town has a fever”. The saying that proved true in the 90s is still very true now. For years, working there meant stability and a purpose. For the Chelyabinsk region, finding its place in the post-Soviet world is still a challenge.