The Kreenholm Manufacturing Company (historical alternate spelling: Krenholm; Estonian: Kreenholmi Manufaktuur; German: Krähnholm Manufaktur; Russian: Кренгольмская мануфактура) was a textile manufacturing company located on the river island of Kreenholm in the city of Narva, Estonia, near the border with Russia.
The new company went bankrupt in 2010, and continued limited operations after purchase by the next set of owners (Kreenholmi Manufaktuur OÜ).
A German merchant made an unsuccessful attempt to start a wool manufacturing business on the island during the 1820s; it was dissolved in 1831.
[3] In 1856, a pioneer of the cotton industry,[4] Ludwig Knoop, purchased the island of Kreenholm for 50,000 roubles from the heirs of a local merchant Sutthoff.
The other three buildings were constructed in the following years with most of the work completed around 1862, although a continuously growing workforce at the factory led to housing expansion for workers throughout the 1860s.
[10] Professor Gerhart von Schulze-Gävernitz visited the mills in the 1890s stating that "the whole place is a bit of England on Russian ground.
Seventy per cent of the spindles were used in making yarns for sale principally among weavers in the St. Petersburg and Moscow textile districts.
[12] The provincial medical inspector Dr. Johann-Eduard von Falk investigated the event and dated the timeline of the outbreak from 21 July to 21 September.
He eventually reported 503 infections and 334 deaths at the factory, although these continuously revised estimates were challenged by both workers and outside contemporaries who though the true numbers were much higher.
[12] Upon denial of their initial requests on the same day, a group of 120 masons walked to the town of Narva to try and get help from the provisional government.
[13] Ernst Kolbe, the director at the time and a major shareholder of the factory, asked for help from the gendarme office in Narva once the workers began demanding more than just for the windows to be closed.
Major Andreianov arrived with three additional officers to oversee negotiations between Kolbe and ten weavers self selected from the workers.
After making their demands, Kolbe claimed that the owners would need to come to the factory from Moscow in order to allow these changes, so the workers agreed to wait and continue working under their current conditions.
[13] On 21 August the collective of workers negotiated their revised demands with two owners from Moscow, including the original and chief investor Ludwig Knoop, with the provincial governor present to intermediate.
[13] On 9 September 1872, a counter-petition was brought forward and signed by 24 workers who, likely in tandem with management, wanted for the old ways of Kreenholm to be restored.
[13] The crowd was peacefully dispersed but the workers sent representatives to the gendarme office in Narva to appeal to the government about the counter revisions.
A council with the governor was denied, although Andreianov suggested they take their concerns to the chief of police for the time being, whom the workers agreed to wait for.
Later in the day, having heard of the previous nights disturbances from the perspective of the factory managers, the district chief of police Hakenrichter Girard arrested 6 delegates from the workers.
The workers armed themselves with blunt objects and returned in the afternoon to surround the office that the managers and police were in, simultaneously blocking off the bridge connecting the island to its western shore.
Unable to contain the now violent actions of the rebellious workers, the provincial governor and an entire imperial regiment were called in to restore order.
A collective of spinners walked out to confront management about grievances related to compensation and factory life once again; a lockout ensued with the strike and three battalions were called to Kreenholm as the government anticipated disorders to start again.
The military were present for a week as the strike continued, although small groups of workers began to return to the factory in the meantime.
[18] Before World War I, this mill employed 10,400 people and manufactured 17,500 thousand tonnes of yarn and 75 million meters of fabric annually, which amounted to roughly 10% of the cotton cloth production in the empire.
[16] During their withdrawal in the same year, the German army took Kreenholm's cotton supply with them, leaving the company without any raw materials to manufacture with after the war ended.
[20] Although the mill was forced to reduce its workforce and decrease the overall production, the company was soon able to enter into other foreign markets and enjoyed commercial success in the independent Republic of Estonia during the 1920s and 1930s.
In 1985, Kreenholm was one of three enterprises selected in Estonia to experiment with exporting products outside of the USSR and entering foreign markets.
[21] After 1986, the company did not have to rely on approvals from the textile ministry in Moscow, as it had gained the authorisation to independently export its goods.
[21] The privatisation process in Estonia started in 1994, and on 1 January 1995 a Swedish company Borås Wäfveri AB acquired the enterprise.
During this time, the World Bank recommended that the company would need to cut down its labor force to 3,800 to avoid financial crisis.
[25] In 2012, Eurotekstiil changed its name to Kreenholmi Manufaktuur OÜ and acquired the trademark of the old factory for use on its line of textile products, such as curtain rolls and satin bedding.