Belaz

In 1947, near the Zhodin railway station the construction of the plant of modern Belaz began. The first products of the new enterprise were containers for transportation of peat, shavers for drying of solid fuel. In 1951 the production was reoriented to the production of snow-clearing equipment, washing units and other equipment. The plant became called “Dormash.”

In 1958, the production of a МAZ-525 dump truck was transferred from the Minsk Automobile Plant, and the company was named “Belarusian Automobile Plant”

In the 1960s, the booming mining industry needed much more productive machines. In this regard, a staff of designers has been created to address this problem. The result of the work was a new dump truck BelAZ-540 designed from scratch. After 4 years of testing, the car was launched into serial production under the designation BelAZ-540A. This event marked a new era of heavy duty dump trucks.