The city's origins date back to the early stages of World War ll when new manufacturing plants
were needed to meet the growing industrial demands of the USSR military. The first development was a
light metal re-processing plant set up in 1941 near the ancient settlement Verh-Neivinsk to serve the
military aviation industry. Construction also began at this time on homes for the workers and a road
network. During the first years of World War II a large army hospital was relocated to the city from
Moscow, followed by an aviation plant, evacuated during the height of the war in 1943.
A key point in the city's development came in 1946 when construction began on a new plant, coded 813,
which was to become the first in the country to produce high-enriched uranium. Now named the Uralian
Electro-Chemical Plant (UECP) it went into operation within three years, a remarkably short space of time.
Academician I.K. Kikoin was put in charge of scientific management of the plant, based on the newly
developing technique of uranium isotope separation using complex gas-diffusion techniques. These new
technologies had been developed by Laboratory#2 (now named Kurchatov's Institute). As the government was
pushing hard at this time for the plant to go into operation as soon as possible, scientists had to work
quickly to overcome major technical difficulties. These included dealing with the demand for a large
electrical capacity, the breakdown of compressors, and corrosive losses. Despite these hurdles they
produced the first small batch of enriched uranium in November 1949, the first in Russia.
During the 1950s, the new city started to grow as production expanded. The first site development plan
for Novouralsk was developed by Leningrad Design Institute GSPI-11. By the end of 1950 84,000 square metres
of residential housing has been built, along with 19 stores, a school, kindergartens and hospital, even
though the development of a social infrastructure often lagged behind the growth in population. In 1952 a
Communication Centre opened in the central square, home to a post office, telegraph and radio stations,
bank and library. The first department store opened at this time, too.
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