State of the refrigeration industry during the First World War (1914-1918)

Before the First World War, there were 379 refrigerating plants (ice machines, refrigerators, refrigerated warehouses, etc.) in the Russian Empire, but they were distributed unevenly over the territory of the country: 297 plants in the European part of Russia, only 13 in Siberia and Far East, 55 in the Caucasus and 14 in Turkestan. The biggest concentration of the rigs was in big cities: 78 in Moscow, 60 in St. Petersburg, 18 in Baku, 15 in Riga, 13 in Odessa and Warsaw, 10 in Kiev. Besides that, in Russia 29 ship refrigerating plants were mounted on cruisers, barges and merchant ships and about 3500 ice-cars were operated on the railroads. Refrigeration units operated mainly on ammonia, rarely - on carbon dioxide, in exceptional cases - on sulfur dioxide.