The beginning of the 20^th century is inseparable from the miracle of ‘captured sound’. Gramophones and singing black discs were wildly popular, conquering in a short time all countries of the Old and New World. Russia was no exception. By this time, more than three dozen gramophone companies were operating in the country with varying degrees of success. Among them, for example, was the London Gramophone Company with the label ‘Writing Cupid’, which had specially set up a large production facility in Riga to tap the boundless market of the Russian Empire, as well as the widely known and popular French company ‘Pathé Frères’.

German businessman Gottlieb Moll decided to create a company with a complete production cycle: from professional recording of musical pieces to the manufacture and sale of stock products – gramophone records, including the production of vinyl pulp, which did not exist at all in central Russia, which did not exist in central Russia at all. The calculation was straightforward: while the newly established company would master the technical problems of sound recording and the nuances of repertoire policy, the income would come from the production of gramophone records for other companies. In the first year, the plant already employed 50 workers. They were mostly former peasants from the nearby villages. In addition, Gottlieb Moll invited competent experienced specialists from Germany. Aprelevka, located near Moscow was chosen; there Moll bought for 30 thousand rubles a small plot of land for his son Johann for the plant construction. More than a year later, not far from Myasnitskaya street in Bankovsky lane, a recording studio and a new galvanic shop were equipped with the latest technology. Initially, the entire Aprelevka with the pretentious name “Metropol-Record” was housed in a small one-story building.

Master disks produced at the Aprelevka plant were of high quality. Already in the first year of operation, 400,000 gramophone records were produced. They were sold under the trademark “Metropol-Records” and soon practically supplanted the products of other manufacturers in the market. The first record of the gypsy song “The Vagabond” produced at the plant is now a rarity. Thanks to the professional actions of Gottlieb Moll and Johann, the new business was rapidly gaining momentum. Having gone through all the difficulties of the first years – working out the quality of sound recording in the studio and the quality of sound of pressed records, searching for reliable wholesale buyers and so on, by 1914, the firm “Metropol-Record” confidently secured a leading position in the Russian market. It was the first to produce sets of gramophone records for learning foreign languages. In order to simplify the frequent change of records, a device for automatic lowering of the gramophone needle was developed – the prototype of the future micro lift. In 1914, the Molls received permission and began to build two new buildings – the plant was about to undergo a major expansion.

But with the outbreak of the war, anti-German mood became very strong in the country. Liquidation of industrial enterprises and land property belonging to the German citizens began. Tens of thousands of people were expelled to the central and eastern parts of the country. The authorities expropriated the Aprelevka plant and handed it over to the Molls' competitor, the Russian Joint Stock Company of Gramophones (RJSC).

After the October Revolution, the plant was nationalized and began producing gramophone records of Russian revolutionaries' speeches. In 1925, it was given the name “Aprelevsky plant in memory of the 1905^th”.
In the Soviet years, the enterprise became the largest gramophone records producing plant in the world and became part of the “Melodiya” company.

For the 115^th anniversary of the Aprelevka gramophone records producing plant opening, we have prepared a musical selection of songs performed by the famous Soviet musicians and recorded from vinyl records stored in the museum Sound Library.

The history of the Aprelevka gramophone plant is posted in the section “Authors/Producers”.