Arkhangelsk Seaweed Factory: One Hundred Years of Import Substitution

The article is devoted to a retrospective analysis of the century-long history of the Arkhangelsk Seaweed Factory (ASF), the oldest enterprise in Russia with a full resource cycle of seaweed processing. The study is relevant in the context of modern challenges of import substitution and greening of industrial production. The subject of the study is the patterns and features of the evolution of an enterprise based on renewable natural resources. The object is the ASF, whose activities cover the full cycle, from seaweed harvesting to product release. The purpose of the study is to explain the long-term economic dynamics of the factory through the concept of of Kondratiev-Perez-Glazyev technological structures. For this purpose, the tasks of periodization of technological history, analysis of enterprise sustainability factors in times of crisis and identification of the specifics of its technological evolution were solved. The information base of the study includes documents of the State Archive of the Arkhangelsk Oblast, ASF reports, scientific publications and digital resources. The methodology is based on time series analysis, comparative and biographical analysis. The main results of the study are as follows: a periodization of the century-long economic history of ASF has been developed on the basis of the concept of technological formations; the evolution of the enterprise from handicraft to modern post-industrial production has been demonstrated; the factors of ASF sustainability in crisis periods, including the 1990s, due to the specificity of assets and innovative approaches have been identified; the contradictions between the production and resource base, which determined the need for technological transformation, have been revealed. During the discussion, the authors emphasize the importance of the transition to environmentally friendly technologies (plantation cultivation of seaweed) and the greening of production. The conclusions emphasize the unique role of ASF as an example of successful import substitution, transformation of technological structures and adaptation to the challenges of sustainable development.