The Oktava creative industrial cluster is a project by investor Mikhail Shelkov and the Rostec corporation, opened in 2018. It is a complex for young, creative and talented people who create the space around them. The cultural cluster encompasses many strands of art, bringing together creativity and industry, and both traditional and contemporary Tula.
The cluster interior is adorned with inspiring quotes.
The cluster is located in the very heart of the city, close to the Tula Kremlin. For local residents it is an iconic place — practically every Tula family includes former interns or employees of the enterprise. The history of the Oktava factory began in 1927, when the Society of Friends of Radio established a workshop for manufacturing radio components. During World War II the factory produced horn speakers and mine detectors, and in 1945 it took first place in the All‑Union socialist competition. In the Soviet years the Oktava plant produced loudspeakers and radios and assembled microphones for Vladimir Vysotsky, Yuri Levitan and Yuri Gagarin, who uttered the legendary phrase “Let’s go!” into a Tula microphone.
Microphone assemblers. Archive photo.
Domestic microphones are valued not only in Russia but also abroad and have repeatedly been used on recordings by world rock'n'roll and underground stars such as Marilyn Manson, Kurt Cobain, Sting and many others. Microphone production is now located outside the city, while the factory retains an assembly workshop where each device is still assembled by hand, without mechanization.
On the second floor of the cluster is the multimedia Machine Tool Museum. Here visitors can see industrial machines and learn interesting facts about the city of craftsmen from a virtual guide and a neural network employing the latest audiovisual technologies — the museum speaks in the voices of Sergey Chonishvili and Veniamin Smekhov. In addition to the permanent exhibition, various temporary exhibitions can be visited.
Oktava has its own well‑developed ecosystem: a lab-workshop, a recording studio, a Higher Technical School, various shops, a coworking space, a café and a library. It regularly hosts festivals, lectures, exhibitions, performances, book readings and meetings with writers; in the evenings there are house concerts and gigs, and in the summer season you can listen to jazz.
