One day, at the very end of the nineteenth century, three trim gentlemen stepped out of the first-class carriage and onto the station platform in the ancient Russian town of Serpukhov, located just a bit less than 60 miles south of Moscow. The gentlemen glanced around, appreciated the three-story railway station building, and, finding nothing more of note, proceeded to a very important meeting. Later, it would become known that two of the gentlemen were representatives of the American company Singer, Mr. Georg Neidlinger and Mr. Frederick Brown, and the third was the U.S. Consul in Moscow, Mr. Smith.
The year 1899, when this scene occurred, was a time when ladies had just abandoned the bustles that caused them so much trouble when walking, the first automobile had been imported to Petersburg, and rural doctors had begun to spout revolutionary ideas when they made their rounds of typhus- and cholera-plagued villages. The vast Russian world had begun to stir, very slowly, into motion, urged on by the hum and thunder of change.
Singer’s enterprise in Russia was part of this change, and by the 1890s the scope of the company’s operations was truly ambitious. Its distributors and stores could be found in dozens of Russian cities, selling not only sewing machines (on payment plans) but also various paraphernalia emblazoned with the firm’s logo. In 1896, “Manufacturing Company Singer” became a Russian corporation; its postcards, sent to every corner of the country, pictured a Russian beauty in a kokoshnik* operating the foreign technological marvel with the caption, “THE REAL sewing machine.” The Russian market looked just as good as Europe, except that transporting machines to Russia had proven unprofitable. After initial hesitation, the company’s management decided to manufacture its machines inside Russia, and soon had the approval of the Ministry of Finances. All it needed now was a site for its factory.
And so it was that the three afore-mentioned gentlemen arrived in Serpukhov. It was not, of course, Serpukhov’s rich history or the beauty of the town’s countless churches that attracted the American businessmen to this storied fortress-city, the capital’s main defense from the South. It was because, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Serpukhov had been known as a major textile center. Linen and silk weaving, and later wool and cotton mills were the main sources of local wealth. Serpukhov took pride in the great diversity of fabrics and variety of colors its mills produced — a sentiment that explains why this ancient Russian city’s crest of arms featured the exotic peacock with its colorful tail fanned wide.
The Americans had a brilliant idea: add the production of sewing machines, needles and threads to the town’s already well established weaving and fabric-printing industries and thereby turn the old city into Russia’s textile capital. The wily Serpukhov merchants, however, had no intention of sharing their well-controlled turf with potential competitors, and the only answer to the Americans was “no.” “No, no, and no,” they could almost hear the prideful peacock crowing after them as they retreated.
The gentlemen, when they returned to the station and took their seats on the train, had much to think about. Serpukhov appeared to be the perfect spot for their factory and they had no idea where they might find a similarly suitable location. On top of its other attractions, Serpukhov offered direct access to the metropolitan centers of fashion by virtue of its location on the Kursk rail line, with direct service to both Moscow and St. Petersburg. Nothing could be more convenient, both for trade and manufacturing, than to build a factory right alongside the railroad.
The Americans discussed the experience of dealing with the recalcitrant Serpukhov merchants, lusted after the land that rolled toward the horizon outside their first-class carriage window, and finally concluded that they needed to find a place that was exactly like Serpukhov, only a little different – with room to maneuver. They had no idea where to look, but then their train emerged from a pine forest and pulled into Podolsk railway station.
That Neidlinger, Brown and Smith would make the snap decision to try their luck in Podolsk is not as unlikely as it might seem: Podolsk would have been the first and only stop on their return journey from Serpukhov to Moscow; the station building was very presentable, and the vast woods around the town occupied plenty of land that could be cleared for construction. Here, then, our railroad story ends and the story of the Singer sewing machine factory begins.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Podolsk was only beginning to develop its industry. Located between Serpukhov and Moscow, it proved to be, almost literally, “the golden mean”: it had the same rail line, the same potential, and no jealous monopolists. As well, Podolsk was one of a million similar small Russian towns, one that had grown up about a way-station on the old road from Moscow to the southern provinces, and it had profited from simple commerce, the changing of horses, and otherwise servicing travelers who passed through it. When the railroad came through, these old occupations became less profitable, and local entrepreneurs began to invest their savings in small manufacturing ventures.
Thus, in May of 1900, in the presence of the town notary, the head of the town council and the representatives of the American company signed a bill of sale for 30 acres of land near the rail line, at the cost of 90,000 rubles.* The site was cleared immediately and, in July of the same year, the Americans laid the cornerstone for their gigantic factory, employing as many as 3,000 workers – more than the entire population of Podolsk. When completed, the factory was a sight to behold. People told their captivated guests and neighbors of the swans gliding in the factory’s landscaped pond and of the steam trains that pulled up to unload right onto its docks.
The Singer factory became the centerpiece of myriad urban legends, the most titillating of which maintained that, during the First World War, factory workers spied for the German Kaiser. This tale’s origins had less to do with the fact that many employees of Singer in Russia were, in fact, German, and more to do with the company’s pioneering practice of network-marketing. The company put a premium on the purposeful and detailed study of its markets, and Singer & Co.’s agents fanned out across the country, making maps and charting local demand – practices that could not but arouse suspicions. In the summer of 1915, Singer’s agents in Russia were repeatedly searched, but the results neither confirmed nor denied accusations of espionage. Few in Russia are aware of this episode, but thanks mainly to this WWI-era legend, most everyone in Russia today thinks that Singer (pronounced “zinger” in Russian) is a German company, not an American one.
Another widespread Podolsk myth avers that Isaac Singer himself, the reputed inventor of the sewing machine, was present at the new factory’s groundbreaking. There are only two problems: first, Isaac Singer did not invent the sewing machine — he was merely one of the many engineers who improved it and adapted it for domestic use; second, Singer died in 1875.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Singer was one of the most dynamic companies in Russia, but of course the 1917 Revolution interfered with the American firm’s ambitions. In May of 1917, Walter Dickson, then the factory’s director, was forced to halt production: raw materials sent by rail to the factory were intercepted and confiscated. Soon thereafter Dickson left Russia and the factory was nationalized.
The Singer sewing machine, however, was destined for greatness beyond the dreams of its most energetic promoters. No other object would be more desired by Soviet women than a Podolsk sewing machine – those who had it could dress elegantly, and at difficult times in Soviet history, they could make what they needed to get by.
Of course, the pre-revolutionary model – with elaborate multicolored curlicues on its black body that gleamed with the same lacquer as was used for grand pianos – would undergo many permutations that reflect the history of the country itself. In the 1920s, as the factory recovered from revolutionary chaos, the machines retained their elegant, old-World shapes, but Soviet symbols displaced peacocks and sphinxes among the machine’s decorative designs. Soon, however, history put an end to such extravagances, and the factory introduced simpler models – in funereal black – reflective of the growing asceticism of Soviet life.
In the 1970s, the humble sewing machine rode another wave of popularity, as the citizenry, hungry for style, turned to newly available patterns in craft magazines and rediscovered tailoring. To satisfy the booming demand, in 1969 the factory introduced a new and improved model, “The Seagull.” Named in honor of Valentina Tereshkova, the first female cosmonaut (Чайка, Seagull, was her call sign during her historic flight), the machine had little in common with its Victorian ancestors: The Seagull was a true Komsomol girl, spreading her wings into the bright future, with a shining modern body made of space age plastic.
Podolsk, meanwhile, was irrevocably changed by the arrival of Singer. The town’s population doubled in the first years of the twentieth century, and it continued to grow and diversify its industries throughout the ensuing decades. Today it is the largest city in Moscow’s immediate vicinity and its main industrial center. There is no doubt that the career of this humble little town was launched by the Singer factory, or, to be more exact, by the unfortunate misunderstanding between Serpukhov merchants and the American entrepreneurs who arrived one day on a southbound train. RL
* 90,000 rubles: The introduction of a gold-backed ruble in 1897 by Finance Minister Sergei Witte made the ruble equal to about 50 U.S. cents. Thus, in 1900, Singer paid about $45,000 for its land, or about $1.15 million in today’s dollars.
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