En
Ru
Olonets governorates printing house was opened in Petrozavodsk
On 23 May (11 May O.S.) 1805, on the Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius, the Olonets Governorates Printing House was opened in Petrozavodsk on the initiative of Mertens Vasily Fyodorovich (1761-1839), governor of Olonets Governorate.
Initially the task of the printing house was to print official documents: circulars, orders of the Senate and provincial authorities. To organise the printing house, a printing press, letterpresses, cash registers and reals were purchased in St. Petersburg. A typesetter, collegiate registrar Alexei Pirogov, was also invited from the capital. Two pupils from Vytegra and Pudozh became his apprentices. One of the wings behind the office building on Kruglaya Square was chosen for the premises of the printing house, where the company operated until 1834. From the second half of the 19th century the printing house was located in the governor's house.
Since 1838, in addition to the forms of various secular departments and documents of the provincial government, the printing house began to print the first newspaper of Olonets province - Olonetskie Gubernskie Vedomosti with a circulation of 300 copies. In 1869 the printing house was equipped with a high-speed printing machine purchased in St. Petersburg. Together with the increase of the staff to 25 people, it allowed to fulfil private orders.
In 1918 the Olonets provincial printing house was renamed into the Soviet Printing House No. 1, in 1920 - into the Regional Printing House No. 1 of the Karelian Labour Commune. On 14 February 1923 it was named after Peter Fyodorovich Anokhin (1891-1922), a native of Petrozavodsk, who from 1903 to 1908 served as a dispatcher in the Orel Labour Commune.From 1903 to 1908 he served as a mailman in Olonets printing house, and during the years of Soviet power - as chairman of Olonets provincial executive committee (1918-1921) and executive secretary of the Far Eastern bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), during the performance of his official duties he was killed in 1922 near Chita.
In 1924, after merging with the private printing house "Severnaya Skoroprintnya", the Petrozavodsk printing house named after P. F. Anokhin became the largest in Karelia. It was located on Pushkinskaya Street in a building reconstructed in 1932 in constructivist style. By 1940, the printing house printed seven newspapers in Russian and Finnish, including the central republican newspaper Krasnaya Karelia.
During the Great Patriotic War, the printing house was evacuated to Medvezhegorsk, then to the town of Belomorsk and to the Tegozero station in the Belomorsk district. At the end of September 1941, when the Karelian front line was approaching Petrozavodsk, the evacuation of the printing house to the rear along the Onega Lake began. On 27 September 1941, one of the barges with a part of the printing house's property and the people accompanying it came under artillery fire and sank.
During the war years the printing house printed republican newspapers, leaflets, books, brochures, army envelopes, divisional leaflets and leaflets. The republican newspaper Leninskoye Znamya and its special issue intended for the population of the occupied territory of Karelia were regularly published.
In 1944, after Petrozavodsk was liberated from Finnish occupation, the printing house returned to its hometown and began full-fledged production of newspapers and two literary magazines.
In 1961, the printing house moved to a new building on Pravda Street and introduced new technologies, in particular, phototypesetting, in-line mechanised lines in the binding shop and book offset, which allowed to noticeably improve the quality of output. In the 1980s the printing house became one of the best book printing enterprises of the USSR and in 1980 was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour. In 1990-2000s the employees successfully mastered computerisation of prepress processes and introduced full-colour printing. The printing house won international competitions such as the Golden Mercury (Paris, 1997), Word Quality Commitement International Star Award (Madrid, 2000) and others.
In different years the Petrozavodsk printing house named after P. F. Anokhin was headed by A. M. Rudnitsky, I. I. Blagoveshchensky, I. A. Alexandrov, G. V. Sikhvonen, G. V. Sikhvonen, A. M. Rudnitsky, I. I. Blagoveshchensky.V. Sikhvonen, G. A. Fomin, I. A. Karachev, Y. S. Goldenberg, G. A. Sosenkin, M. G. Rusakov, and G. A. Ladvinsky.
In 2007 the Petrozavodsk printing house named after P. F. Anokhin was transformed into an open joint-stock company, and in 2011 it actually ceased to exist.
Lit.: Акуленко В. В. Не боги печатают книги. Петрозаводск, 2000; Верстая время: Типографии им. П. Ф. Анохина – 175 лет. Петрозаводск, 1980; ГП Республиканская типография им. П. Ф. Анохина // Петрозаводск: библиографический указатель литературы. Петрозаводск, 2003. С. 65; Ершов Р. А. Типография им. П. Ф. Анохина / Р. А. Ершов // Карелия: энциклопедия. В 3 т. Петрозаводск, 2011. Т. 3. Р–Я. С. 173–174; Из очерка в газете об открытии Олонецкой губернской типографии // Петрозаводск: 300 лет истории: документы и материалы. В 3 кн. Петрозаводск, 2001. Кн. 2. 1803–1903. С. 233–234; Кутьков Н. П. ГУП РК «Республиканская типография им. П. Ф. Анохина»: к 200-летию со дня образования / Н. П. Кутьков; библиографию подготовила П. Н. Золотухина // Календарь знаменательных дат Карелии, 2005 год. Петрозаводск, 2004. С. 50–52; 1805, 11 мая: [хроника] // Петрозаводск: хроника трёх столетий, 1703–2003. Петрозаводск, 2002. С. 62.
Based on the materials of Presidential Library:
Republic of Karelia: Pages of History: [digital collection]
Article prepared by the National Library of the Republic of Karelia