Hydroproject (Russian: Институт «Гидропроект», Gidroproekt) is a Russian hydrotechnical design firm. Based in Moscow, it has a number of branches around the country. Its main activities are design of dams, hydroelectric stations, canals, sluices, etc.[1]
Hydroproject and its predecessor institutions[clarification needed] have designed most of the hydroelectric dams and irrigation and navigation canals that have been built in the Soviet Union and Russia since the 1930s.[citation needed] They have designed a number of high-profile projects abroad as well, from India to Egypt to Canada.[citation needed] The institute, under Sergey Zhuk's leadership, also researched the Northern river reversal's potential. It has also been involved in realizing nuclear power plants in the Soviet Union between 1969 and 1986.[2]
Hydroproject traces its history to the design departments of the Moscow Canal Construction Project (the 1930s), and the Hydroelectrostroy Trust (Трест “Гидроэлектрострой”), which was formed on October 9, 1930, to coordinate the construction of hydroelectric dams in the USSR during its first five-year plan. The first director of the Hydroelectroproject Trust, the successor of the Hydroelectrostroy Trust, between 1932 and 1936, was Vissarion Chichinadze, who was executed during the Great Purge.[5] The two organizations, after changing their names a number of times, were finally merged in 1962. Until 1950, they were within the ambit of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs; later, under the Ministry of Energy.
Some of the institute's regional branches, notably the one in Saint Petersburg, known as Lenhydroproject, have an even longer history.[6] In the 1990s, the institute operated as a subsidiary of RAO UES, Russia's national electricity company. In 2010 it became part of the RusHydro group.[7]
