As the Nazi army closed in on Moscow, during Autumn of 1941, the factory was hurriedly evacuated to the city of Zlatoust where more than 300,000 Zlatoust Type-1 watches and clocks were made.
In 1942, some 3,009 PV-1 guns were converted to infantry weapons by mounting them on the Sokolov 1910 carriage (the one used in the PM M1910) at a factory in Zlatoust.
Due to anti-Communist family connections, Dmitry's father, Boris Alexandrov, decided to move the family to Zlatoust in the Ural Mountains in 1938.
A Bashkir, Kamaletdinov was born in Zlatoust, Russia and spent his early childhood in a village near Ufa, Bashkiria, which by coincidence is the same village where the great dancer Rudolf Nureyev grew up.