In European cities, heavy snowfall easily becomes a reason to shut down the airport, cancel flights, and wait out the bad weather with a mug of mulled wine. For the Soviet Union, such an approach was impossible. Here, snow meant not a domestic inconvenience, but a potential threat to the entire infrastructure.
Extensive highways, hundreds of airfields, remote Siberian regions, northern military garrisons — all this required equipment capable of working where in Paris or Rome such conditions were difficult to even imagine. The task was not just to clean the street, but to clear the runway in an hour while the combat MiGs were waiting for takeoff clearance.
By the mid-1950s, a full-fledged engineering school of snow removal vehicles had formed in the USSR — from relatively simple bucket loaders to installations using jet aircraft engines. Literally.
D-470: a silhouette known in the North
One of the most recognizable machines was the D-470 snowplow. Its development began in 1958 under the leadership of designer Korshunov at the Rybinsk Road Machine Plant. A year later, production was moved to Severodvinsk, to Plant No. 6, later named "Sevdormash."
The army ZIL-157 with a 6×6 wheel arrangement was used as a base, but in fact, only the cab remained from the production truck. The standard gasoline engine was dismantled, the front bumper was removed, the frame was lengthened, and the headlights were moved to the roof. The freed-up space was occupied by a U2D6 railway diesel engine with a capacity of 175 hp.
The snow was processed by a twin-screw feeder, which crushed the dense crust, after which a single-rotor impeller threw the snow mass through a pipe. The machines worked throughout the country — from Murmansk to Transbaikalia. For operation in the Far North, the D-470 received a two-circuit electrical circuit of 24/12 V and an autonomous cabin heater.
It was heavy equipment designed for extreme conditions and continuous operation.
KO-203: a communal "workhorse"
If the D-470 belonged to the heavy class, then the KO-203 snowplow became a real mainstay of urban utilities. It was produced by the Sverdlovsk Plant of Municipal Engineering from the early 1970s. The purpose was extremely practical: to load snow into dump trucks without blocking traffic.
The design was extremely simple. Units from GAZ-52, a gasoline engine with a capacity of 75 hp, accessible and understandable components. A bucket feeder captured the snow, and a scraper conveyor on the boom continuously fed it into the truck body.
The working speed was 2.44 km/h — slightly faster than a pedestrian, the transport speed reached approximately 25 km/h. Utility workers called these machines "eternal": many copies worked for 30–40 years, surviving several generations of new equipment. Later they were replaced by the all-wheel drive KO-206, but the KO-203 can still be found in some places.
PR-130: simplicity as a strategy
The PR-130 snow removal machine solved a completely different task. Between 1966 and 1986, this machine, based on the ZIL-130, was used to treat roads with a sand-salt mixture. No complicated mechanisms: a hopper, an auger, and a distribution disc.
A blade was installed in the front, which made it possible to simultaneously rake snow and treat the road surface. The design was rational to the limit: a mass chassis, standard spare parts, repairability in any garage. A service life of 20–30 years became the norm, and the machines themselves became an integral part of the winter landscape of almost every Soviet city.
K-700 with a DE-214 plow: power against snowdrifts
The K-700 tractor was already considered a legend, but with the DE-214 two-shaft plow developed by the Minsk plant "Udarnik", it turned into a real tool for fighting the elements.
A massive machine with an articulated frame cleared roads from meter-high snowdrifts, developed snow walls, and formed column paths. In arid regions, the K-700 was also used for snow retention — already for agronomic purposes.
Two half-blades on a transverse frame with shock absorbers, replaceable knives for working on dense crust, huge traction and mass provided productivity that was pointless to compete with.
TM-59MG: jet tractor
If the previous machines looked powerful, then the TM-59MG in the 1980s seemed almost fantastic. The "Udarnik" plant installed a VK-1 turbojet engine on the T-150K tractor — the same one that was used on the first MiG-15s.
A stream of hot gases was directed downwards, melting ice and blowing away snow crumbs. Behind the cab was a tank of 3000 liters of chemical solution for treating the coating. Thermal impact, gas pressure, and chemistry were combined in one complex. Such machines were used at airfields, where almost perfect cleanliness of runways was required.
DE-224 and its successors: the limit of possibilities
The pinnacle of Soviet engineering thought was the DE-224 snow removal machine, produced in 1975–1979. A MOAZ-546P tractor unit housed a blade and brush, and a turboprop aircraft engine AI-20 from an Il-18 aircraft was placed on a semi-trailer.
The hot air stream not only blew away the snow but also dried the strip, knocking out small snow crumbs. Productivity reached 80 hectares per hour — figures unattainable for classic plows.
In the 1980s, AI-25s from Yak-40 began to be installed, and subsequent models DE-229 and DE-235 logically completed the concept: two engines, a fuel reserve of up to 10 tons, airfield cleaning exclusively with hot air. The machines were built in small series but became real engineering artifacts of their era.
Technology for a country where winter is commonplace
Six machines — six fundamentally different approaches: augers, plows, brushes, walking feeders, sand spreaders, and jet installations. The Soviet school of snow removal equipment was formed for a territory where winter is not a seasonal nuisance but a constant factor in life.
Many of these machines were supplied to dozens of countries, some have survived to this day, and the solutions themselves still amaze with their scale and engineering boldness.