Our mill in Juzha is the only one in the country to produce linen yarns from short flax fibres in such volumes and the first to produce bast and hemp yarns.
The history of our factory begins in 1860. It was in this year that Ivan Alexandrovich Protasiev (1802−1875), a Vyazniki landowner, built a threestorey building of a paper-spinning mill for 16 thyousand spindles on the shore of Lake Vazal, designed by N.K. Reim. Due to shortage of cotton supplies in 1864 the Yuzha mill was stopped.
In 1865 Protasiev sold it to Asigkrit Yakovlevich Balin (1816−1886), who continued the business of his grandfather Semyon Ivanovich Balin.
(1761- 1831), who bought linen canvas in the village of Vichuga from small artisans and dyed them in blue colour.
In half a century the Balins turned a village lost in the forests with a population of 300 into an exemplary industrial garden town with a population of 15 thousand inhabitants, 7800 of whom worked in the factory workshops in 1914.
In 1885, a few days after Asigkrit Yakovlevich’s death, his wife and sons established the "A.Y.Balin Manufactory Partnership".
The scale of production organised by the Balins was maintained and developed during the Soviet era.
Attempts to "revitalise" the factory were made several times, but the changed economic situation did not allow to do it seriously and for a long time. Now in the working shops of the " A.Y. Balin Manufactory Partnership" it smells of flax and hemp. And yarn is produced from hemp fibres.
Our mill is the only one in the country to produce linen yarns from short fibre flax and the first to produce bast yarns in such volumes. We are also the only one in the country to produce blended yarns with hemp. Apart from us, the only other producers of hemp blended yarns in the world are China, Italy and Turkey.