BelOMO or Belorusskoe Optiko-Mechanichesckoye Obyedinenie (Belarus Optical & Mechanical Association) was founded in Minsk in 1971 in Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union, now Belarus. The main factory is the Minskiy Mechanichesckiy Zavod imeni S.I. Vavilova, opened in Minsk 1957 and named after the Soviet physicist Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov (1891–1951). A joint venture with German optics maker Zeiss was begun in 1995. The firm produces lenses and optical elements for microscopes and other optical equipment with ISO 9001 certification.