History

Brest Wine Warehouse N4 was founded in Brest. Georgy Vrublevsky was appointed the first head of it. The wine warehouse located between Sadovaya and Dvoryanskaya Streets (now Ordzhonikidze and Mickiewicz Streets, respectively), as well as Millionnaya and Voznesenskaya Streets (Sovetskaya and Komsomolskaya). The main measure in the production and sale of vodkas in the Russian Empire was the so-called "bucket", equal to the modern 12.3 liters. The law required that all finished products be sold in containers proportional to the proportions of the bucket. Thus, vodka was sold in bottles with a capacity of 3 liters to 60 milliliters. A bucket of ordinary forty-degree "wine" cost the same everywhere: 7 rubles. A smaller bottling cost a multiple of parts of a bucket, no more, no less. According to the "Regulation on the state sale of drinks", labels indicating the volume, strength and price of the drink were necessarily pasted on the bottles.

The First World War and the economic crisis that shook Poland in 1924, where Western Belarus moved away according to the Brest Peace, destroyed the enterprise. In 1914, shortly after the first battles in Galicia, the Brest fortress began to be urgently prepared for battle. Up to 70 thousand workers and 8.5 thousand carts were employed in work to strengthen it during peak periods. More than 60 workers and craftsmen of the Wine Warehouse No. 4 also worked tirelessly at that time - vodka remained a basic necessity. The company operated until the summer of 1915, that is, almost to the moment when the Russian army had to leave huge territories on the Southwestern and Northwestern fronts under the onslaught of the enemy. In August 1915, however, Brest experienced one of the worst disasters in its history. By order of the headquarters of the front and the provincial authorities, the city was ordered to be destroyed: the tsarist strategists decided to use scorched earth tactics during the retreat, and, no matter how pathetic it sounds, at the same time cause a "patriotic movement" among the masses, similar to what it was during the Patriotic War of 1812. When the 3rd Russian army began to withdraw from the Bug with heavy fighting, the forts of the eastern belt of the fortress were blown to the ground, the head caponiers were damaged in the forts of the western bypass, valuable property and supplies were evacuated from the Citadel. In Brest, special detachments of Cossacks and militias were operating, methodically setting fire to and undermining entire residential neighborhoods. As a result, 60 percent of all houses in the flourishing city turned into ruins and ashes yesterday. At first, it was decided to evacuate the population to the inner provinces of Russia. In the Wine Warehouse No. 4, even before these events, some rooms were adapted for the infirmary. At the same time, a part of the equipment was dismantled, which was transported by rail to the depths of Russia, to the Ryazan province. At the time of the city's surrender, the main buildings and outbuildings of the enterprise were also put on fire. When units of Austrian and German troops entered Brest-Litovsk, they were met here only by burnt walls with empty eye sockets of broken windows. For the next three years or more, life in Brest-Litovsk was barely marked. The occupiers did not make any efforts to restore it, on the contrary: everything of any value was exported to Germany and Austria, whose resources were on the verge of complete exhaustion - even bricks from the dismantling of Brest buildings. However, years passed before the Polish administration turned its attention to the former Wine Warehouse No. 4, or rather, returned to the idea of local production of alcoholic beverages. The block where the former Wine Warehouse No. 4 was located was listed as partially destroyed. At the time of the arrival of the Poles, there were only a few stone boxes without a roof on the territory of the enterprise. Everything that had previously been in the premises was charred, smashed and looted. In the first post-war years, when refugees began to return to Brest en masse, there was no question of any purposeful revival of local industry. In the autumn of 1919 there were only 7 thousand inhabitants in Brest, in February 1920 there were already over 28 thousand. It is clear that the authorities, barely coping with the unprecedented influx of people, solved first of all the issues of food supply to the population.

In 1927, a government decision was made to establish in the eastern voivodeships a number of distilleries and distilleries owned by the State Alcohol Monopoly. Among them is the "Vytvurnya wodek No. 7" in the center of the Polesie voivodeship. The "distillery" (factory or factory) was registered on the same territory as the once destroyed Wine warehouse - however, the legal address was Dombrovsky Street, 1 (now Sovetskaya). Thus, a new step was taken to continue the chronicle of the largest Brest enterprise. The distillery had to be created almost anew. New buildings and buildings occupied a significant part of the block. The main production building faced Sadovaya Street. Most enterprises in Brest over the Bug, which has not yet fully recovered from the military fires, have reduced the number of workers, some have gone bankrupt. There are more people in the city who do not have the opportunity to earn money. The magistrate and public organizations provided them with all possible assistance, for example, in 1931 there were two canteens that gave out daily lunches (for a nominal fee or free of charge), field kitchens were set up on the Volyn suburb, which was considered the most remote from the center, to supply the unemployed with hot meals. Under these conditions, the selling prices for alcohol were reduced (they were set for each voivodeship on a monthly basis), and measures were taken to improve the structure of the State Alcohol Monopoly. The main innovation was the creation of regional sales offices covering the entire country. In Brest above the Bug, the office, like the factory, had the number "7". The improvement of the economic situation allowed us to begin some modernization of workshops, to use automation and electric machines more widely. According to the data of the Main Statistical Office of Poland, in February 1938, the working staff of the Brest plant numbered exactly 100 people, 69 of them women. All of them worked five and six days a week in the reporting period - that is, there was no question of incomplete loading of the enterprise. "Vytvurnya wodek No. 7" successfully began 1939, the team consistently fulfilled plans for monthly production. Brest over the Bug lived an increasingly diverse and eventful life, many enterprises in the late 30s no longer reduced, but expanded their activities, plans for further improvement of the city were drawn up in the magistrate, which, we note, by that time had already acquired a modern powerful power plant, sewer networks, water supply, hundreds of new stone buildings were built in it houses. On September 1, 1939, the Second World War began. In the autumn of 1939, the countdown of the Soviet period of Brest began. As you know, on October 28-30, the People's Assembly of Western Belarus was held in Bialystok, the delegates of which were "representatives of the broad masses of the people." The Assembly adopted a declaration on the establishment of Soviet power in the western regions, as well as on the confiscation of pan land holdings, the nationalization of industrial enterprises and banks. At the same time, on behalf of the people, a request was made to the supreme Soviets to accept Western Belarus as part of Stalin's propaganda and hoping for a bright future. However, from the very beginning, the voices of ordinary people meant little to the new government - the political regime that existed in the USSR did not allow even a shadow of any kind of freedom of thought. This was how the legal basis was laid for the processes of expropriation of property that began everywhere. According to eyewitnesses, the distillery on Sovetskaya Street was not damaged by enemy fire. But after a day or two, the finished goods warehouse and alcohol tanks here were completely emptied - some enterprising residents took advantage of the general chaos. Looters, despite the danger of getting shot, also hunted abandoned apartments, warehouses and shops. After the Wehrmacht field units left Brest, the city was transferred to the control of gendarmerie units. The occupation life began - difficult, hard, full of cruel events and human fear, from which even the stone walls of the houses seemed to freeze. The creators of the "new order" included Brest in the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine". Since the summer of 1941, a number of local enterprises have been put at the service of the occupiers. The vodka factory has become operational again. According to some documents, the backbone of the plant's staff during the occupation was made up of experienced workers who worked under the Poles, and then under the Soviets. The administration at the enterprise was German, headed by an elderly director named Schneider, but in fact the production was led by Polish specialists, those who managed to travel to the other side of the Bug in 1939. Since the autumn of 1942, raids began to be carried out in the city, from which even the territory of "German" enterprises could not save. The detained people, mostly young, without any formalities and bickering got to the accumulation points, then they were transported in wagons to the Reich for forced labor.

In the summer of 1944, the offensive operation Bagration began - this war had never known anything like it. The Red Army has firmly seized the strategic initiative. Having ground the core of Hitler's army group Center, it moved forward, step by step liberating the occupied territories. During several offensive operations, the Belarusian land was almost cleared of the enemy by mid-July. Despite desperate maneuvers, the German command failed to gain a foothold on the banks of the Bug and somehow stabilize the situation. In the twenties of July, the so-called Brest cauldron was formed, by July 25, parts of three infantry divisions of the Wehrmacht were trapped in the city and its surroundings. On July 28, 1944, the city was completely liberated. After the Great Patriotic War, the activities of the enterprise, which was taken over by the USSR Drug Industry, resumed. The volume of production is 79,420 decaliters of vodkas, tinctures and drinks.

The period of the company's development of unique production technologies based on the age-old traditions of traditional medicine, ancient Belarusian recipes, the use of rare herbs of Belovezhskaya Pushcha and strict compliance with international standards. Since December 1947, the management of the enterprise, which no longer bore the pre-war name "Liberated Labor", was joined by E.Volost. He then remained in the directorship for almost ten years. The main product of the plant was still white vodka. The drink with a strength of 40 ° was bottled in bottles with a capacity of 0.5 liters, containers of other volumes were almost not used until the mid-50s. The products were shipped in wooden boxes containing 12 bottles. Until the end of the decade, the company partially used imported purified alcohol, then switched entirely to local raw materials. The main supplier of raw alcohol in the early 50s was the Rogoznyansky distillery. Rectification was carried out directly at the plant. Until the early 50s, the main equipment was used, which was installed "behind the Polish clock" in 1939. It was only in 1952 that some modernization was carried out at the enterprise, as a result of which filling machines of the Zhukov system appeared in the workshops. These carousel-type devices had a capacity of 2,700 bottles per hour, which dramatically increased the productivity of the workshop. In fact, the first semi-automatic line began operating in the bottling shop. Since April 1962, a woman has been at the helm of the enterprise for the first time in its long history - M.S. Khoroshko was appointed the new director. She did a great job, then stayed in the leadership chair for almost nine years. Two years later, in 1964, the plant was incorporated into the republican association "Kristall", which also included the Minsk plant of the same name and the LVZ in Vitebsk, Gomel and Klimovichi. A.I. Efimenko was appointed Chief Engineer in Brest. In the same year, along with the former ordinary "Vodka 40 °" in the city above the Bug, they began to produce "Moscow special" - the first Soviet vodka with a special name. The recipe was developed in 1940, but for a long time the Moskovskaya was produced only by the capital's Kristall plant (a one-time batch was also bottled in Brest before the war). In the mid-60s, the Brest Distillery began trial export deliveries. Limited shipments of "Moskovskaya" and "Stolichnaya" were sent to the socialist countries (this brand gained international fame in 1958 at an exhibition in Brussels). The recipients were sales agents from socialist countries, the shipment was carried out by rail - fortunately, the plant was located in close proximity to the Brest-Tsentralny station. It should be noted that by that time international traffic through Brest was rapidly increasing, the city was often referred to in the press as the "Western Gate of the Soviet Union." The intermediary in the export of Brest vodka products was the Soyuzplodoimport association, established in 1966. Since 1976, a significant technical reconstruction of the distillery has been taking place in Brest, to a lesser extent affecting its appearance and to a much greater extent its production capabilities. In the conditions of unification, when clear "vertical" production links were built, it was possible to organize the purification of alcohol directly where the raw material was produced - with proper control over the quality of the product. The next revolutionary decision concerned the production of wines - it was also abandoned. Despite the fact that fruit and berry fortified drinks were in great demand in the cities and towns of the European part of the USSR, they were never produced within the walls of the factory. So "Solntsedar", "Vermouth", "Aghdam", "Port 777" and other popular names have gone down in history. A full-fledged export workshop began to be created on the site of the former wine production. Especially for him, the purchase of the latest imported equipment was "punched" through Minsk and Moscow, which soon arrived from Italy under the contract.

Years of genuine triumph of the enterprise. The quality of the products meets the highest requirements of consumers and has no equal among similar factories of the former Soviet Union. Until the end of the tenth five-year plan (1976-1980), the plant firmly held the title of an advanced enterprise, more than once emerged as the winner of the sectoral socialist competition, was regularly awarded high awards and passing banners. In general, Brest distillery has a very strong and highly professional team, capable of successfully and in a short time to solve complex production and technical tasks. Many of the employees counted their experience since the post-war and even pre-war years, so the youth had someone to learn from. Specialists who graduated from universities in specialized areas constantly came to the plant. The presence of strong personnel made it possible not to leave technological innovations as interesting news on the pages of departmental magazines, but to implement them into life at the first opportunity. . Work for export began to occupy a leading place in the production program of the enterprise. The turbulent 90s became a time of economic experiments, social upheavals and a protracted economic crisis for the former Soviet republics - and now independent states. Old myths were being destroyed - and, after them, new ones related to the market economy. This economy was never created. In return, millions of people in the post-Soviet space received an uncontrollable market element. Brest distillery was still listed as part of the agro-industrial complex "Western Bug", however, it was clear that the bet on a vertical agricultural processing holding, made in the last years of the USSR, did not justify itself - instead it turned out to be a kind of confusing subsistence farming. Therefore, on September 20, 1993, the decree of the Brest Regional Executive Committee No. 291 "On improving the efficiency of management of state-owned enterprises of the agro-industrial complex of the region" was published. In the mid-90s, an important image correction took place: a new company name was introduced: "Brest distillery "Belalko". A little later, the corresponding Belalko logo appeared, which was applied to the product labels. In March 1998, the plant received the international quality management certificate ISO 9001, becoming the first owner of such a document in the city of Nad Bug. Subsequently, this has helped Brest residents more than once in communicating with foreign contractors, especially those who work in the privileged markets of Western Europe and the United States. In November, Gosstandart of Belarus, which had previously issued the national ISO 6001-96 certificate to the Brest Distillery, organized a special seminar on the implementation of production quality control and management systems at the plant. During the event, the plant was recognized as the winner of the republican competition in honor of the World Standardization Day and awarded a special diploma. In 2004, a structural re-organization took place: the Brodnitsky Starch Plant was introduced into the RPUP, as well as divisions of branded trade. In September 2004, the State Standard of the Republic of Belarus awarded Belalco with a certificate of conformity of the quality management system conforming to the requirements of STB ISO 9001-2001. The high quality of food rectified alcohol "Lux", as well as other ingredients, made it possible to raise the level of drinks higher. At the international exhibition in Moscow "All-Russian stamp - III millenium. The quality mark of the XXI century" (2004, December) products from Brest received 6 awards at once. In 2009, there was a change in the leadership of Belalco. A certain rotation also took place among the leading managers of the enterprise.

In 2010, Belalco discovered the markets of Moldova, Norway, Ukraine, Turkey, Vietnam, Chile and Bulgaria. Outside of Belarus, the company supplies alcoholic beverages, mainly vodka, rectified alcohol, starch. The widest range of alcoholic beverages is shipped to Kazakhstan, Latvia and Lithuania. Along with Russia, Belalco's trade representative offices have been operating in Lithuania and Latvia for several years. This year the company opened a similar representative office in Poland. On January 21, 2011, one of the most important events of the Belarusian business took place — the presentation of awards to the winners of the Honorary nomination "SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE BRAND 2010" within the framework of the Professional BRAND OF THE YEAR Competition. The Brest Distillery "Belalco" received a gold medal in the honorary nomination "Socially responsible brand" in the category "Ethical market behavior". Brest Distillery constantly takes an active part in various international and national exhibitions, tasting competitions. In 2012, at the International Conference on Quality in Geneva (Switzerland), Belalco was awarded the International Price in the Gold category for Quality, Leadership, Technology and Innovation, impeccable work and stability over the past years. In the same year, the company won another high award in the field of quality - the Award of the Government of the Republic of Belarus. On December 3, 2013, the Brest Distillery "Belalco" was reorganized into JSC. The company's more than a century-old traditions have been reflected not only in vodka and other beverages, which have earned popularity and fame among millions of consumers over the years. Modern, well-equipped, high-tech factory is a visible part of what represents the homeland of the Brest vodka brand. The second, even more important part is a highly professional team, competent and cohesive, able to solve complex problems and focused on the final result. In July 2015, the President of the Republic of Belarus signed Decree No. 326 "On the establishment of the Belarusian Alcohol holding". The holding includes 8 organizations of the Belgospishcheprom concern. The management company is JSC "MINSK KRISTALL".