The Lyubertsy Agricultural Engineering Plant was founded in 1902. A pioneer of the national engineering industry, a true veteran plant of epoch-making significance, it went through difficult periods of Tsarist, revolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet times, experiencing rises and falls, changes of ownership, changes in the range of products manufactured, and other cataclysms.
In 1909, according to reference data, of ten sellers of agricultural machines, seven were foreigners; of twelve sellers of dairy-farming equipment, nine were foreigners; of twelve offices engaged in exporting butter, seven were Danish, two were English, and only three were Russian.
Having begun its operations as the first and only enterprise in Russia producing brakes for railway cars under the name “New York,” and having failed to receive the necessary orders, the plant went bankrupt and, in 1911, was purchased by the American “International Harvester Company in Russia.” It began producing reapers, header harvesters, mowers, and binder harvesters, turning into an agricultural engineering enterprise and becoming one of the centers for supplying machinery—mainly horse-drawn—to peasant farms.
In the first year of operation (1911–1912), more than 17,000 harvesting machines were produced. But during World War I and the Civil War, machine production fell by a factor of 4–5 and then, after the war, gradually increased. However, the plant saw its strongest development after its nationalization (a third birth) in 1924, especially in the pre-war period, having organized the production and supply of machinery needed by agriculture.