Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk (Russian: Красноя́рск), administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, is the third largest city in Siberia. It lies on the Yenisei River and is an important station on the Trans-Siberian railway.
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Coat of arms
The first version of the Krasnoyarsk coat of arms had been approved on March 12, 1804. The coat of arms had been divided horizontally into two parts, the upper part contained the coat of arms of the Tomsk Guberniya, the lower part had the picture of the Krasny Yar cliff on the silver background.
The coat of arms approved on November 23, 1851 had the golden figure of a lion placed on the red heraldic shield with a spade in the right fore paw and a sickle in the left fore paw, both made of the same metal. The shield was topped with the golden crown of the Russian Empire.
The current coat of arms (see above) approved on November 28, 2004 contains the same red shield with the slightly changed figure of the lion topped with the golden five-tower status crown of a federal subject center.
In 2005, the 16 meters tall pillar with the bronze statue of the Krasnoyarsk heraldic lion upon its top was erected at the Krasnoyarsk Railway Station square.
Geography
Geographical location of the city is 56°01′N 93°04′E. The total area of the city including suburbs and the river is 172 square kilometres. Average temperature of January is −20°C, July—18°C, minimum temperature ever recorded ws —56°C, maximum—36°C. Due to the hydroelectric power station water reservoir located in 32 km upstream the river never freezes in winter and its temperature never exceeds 14°C in summer. The Yenisei water level near the city center is 136 meters from the sea level.
The city is situated on both banks of the Yenisei River, in the city area it flows from west to east. There are several islands on the river, the largest of which are Tatyshev and Otdyha used mainly for recreation purposes.
To the south and west Krasnoyarsk is surrounded by the forest-covered hills with an average height of 410 m from the Yenisei River level. The hills located on the right (southern) bank of Yenisei are steeper than the western hills of the left (northern) bank.
The right bank of Yenisei is notable for the gigantic rock cliffs of the national nature reserve Stolby rising from the surrounding hills. The western hills form the Gremyachinskaya Griva crest starting from the Nikolayevskaya Sopka hill notable for the ski-jumping tracks and extending westwards up to the Sobakina River. The relief of the northern part of the neighborhood is rather plain with forests to the north-west and agricultural fields to the north-east and east.
The most prominent hills in the Krasnoyarsk area are:
- Nikolayevskaya Sopka
- Karaulnaya Gora
- Chornaya Sopka
- Drokinskaya
The major rivers located in the Krasnoyarsk area are:
- Mana
- Bazaikha
- Kacha
- Yesaulovka
- Beryozovka
- Karaulnaya
- Slizneva River
- Listvennaya River
- Zarechnaya Listvyanka
- Minzhul
- Sobakina (Pionerskaya)
- Krutenkaya
- Laletina
Due to the specifics of the relief there are few natural lakes exist in the Krasnoyarsk neighborhood.
The nearby towns are (with distances from Krasnoyarsk and directions):
- Sosnovoborsk (30 km NE)
- Divnogorsk (34 km W)
- Zheleznogorsk (46 km NE)
- Uyar (88 km E)
- Zelenogorsk (103 km E)
- Zaozyorny (109 km E)
- Borodino (122 km E)
- Achinsk (153 km W)
- Nazarovo (158 km E)
- Kansk (173 km E)
- Artyomovsk (186 km S)
- Ilansky (195 km E)
- Uzhur (209 km W)
- Bogotol (213 km W)
Urban structure
Krasnoyarsk is divided into seven administrative districts:
- Kirovsky
- Leninsky
- Oktyabrsky
- Sovetsky
- Sverdlovsky
- Tsentralny
- Zheleznodorozhny
Demographics
The population count dynamic by years:
| 1897 | 26,600 | 1962 | 465,000 | 1982 | 833,000 | 2000 | 875,500 |
| 1923 | 60,400 | 1967 | 576,000 | 1986 | 885,000 | 2001 | 875,900 |
| 1926 | 72,200 | 1970 | 648,000 | 1989 | 912,600 | 2002 | 911,700 |
| 1939 | 190,000 | 1973 | 707,000 | 1992 | 925,000 | ||
| 1956 | 328,000 | 1976 | 758,000 | 1996 | 871,100 | ||
| 1959 | 412,000 | 1979 | 796,300 | 1998 | 875,300 |
Population count by districts (2001):
- Kirovsky: 114,000
- Leninsky: 140,100
- Oktyabrsky: 133,800
- Sovetsky: 202,800
- Sverdlovsky: 131,500
- Tsentralny: 62,000
- Zheleznodorozhny: 91,700
The population of Krasnoyarsk includes a number of peoples, the most numerous are Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Germans and Belarusians. Of the late years the number of Tajiks, Uzbeks and other Central Asian and Caucasian peoples has extensively grown because of the vast, often illegal immigration in search for work.
Another multitudinous immigrants are Chinese who, in opposite to other foreign workers, are employed in much more lucrative areas and often doing co-operative business with local companies. Many Chinese are busy in trading at bazaars, there even exists a special large Chinese bazaar named Sodruzhestvo (Russian for fellowship) and the Chinese Trading Town (Russian: Китайский торговый город) or colloquially Kitai-gorod situated at Strelka.
History
The city was founded in the midst of July 1628 as a fort. The sluzhylyye lyudi led by the Cossack Andrey Dubenskoy arrived to the influx of the Kacha River and quickly began to build up the fortifications intended to protect the frontier from attacks of aboriginals who lived along Yenisei and its tributaries. In the letter to Tsar the Cossacks reported:
- ... The town of trunks we have constructed and around the place of fort, we the servants of lord ye, posts have bedded in and the double bindings have laid so and the place of fort have strengthened mightily ...
The fort have been named "Krasnyy Yar" (Russian: Кра́сный Яр) after the local Turkic name of the place it was built by: "Kyzyl Dzhar", meaning "Red Cliff" or "Krasnyy Yar" in old Russian. The name "Krasnoyarsk" was given later when the village of Krasnyy Yar has received the town status.
The intensive growth of Krasnoyarsk began with the arrival of the Moscow Postroad (the road M53 nowadays) in 1735 to 1741 which connected the nearby towns of Achinsk and Kansk with Krasnoyarsk and with the rest of Russia, and later by the discovery of gold and by the arrival of the railroad in 1895.
In the 19th century Krasnoyarsk was the center of the Siberian Cossack movement. In 1822 it had gained the status of town and had become the capital of the Yenisei Guberniya. In the end of the 19th century Krasnoyarsk had several manufactures, railroad workshops and an engine-house.
In Imperial Russia Krasnoyarsk was the one of the places of political exile. Eight Decembrists have been deported there after the failure of the revolt.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917 during the Pyatiletkas the large plants and factories have been built in Krasnoyarsk: Sibtyazhmash, the dock yard, the paper factory, the hydroelectric power station (now the fifth largest in the world and the second in Russia), the river port.
In 1934 the Krasnoyarsk Krai had been formed with the center in Krasnoyarsk.
During the epoch of Stalinism Krasnoyarsk was the major Gulag center. The most important labor camp was the Kraslag or Krasnoyarskiy ITL (1938-ca.1960) with the two units located in Kansk and Reshyoty. In Krasnoyarsk itself the Yeniseylag or Yeniseiskiy ITL labor camp existed in 1940-41(?).
During the World War II the dozens of factories have been evacuated from the western Russia to Krasnoyarsk and the nearby towns which stimulated the industrial growth of the city. After the war more of the gigantic plants have been built: the aluminum plant, the metallurgic plant, the plant of base metals and many others.
In the end of 1970s the Soviet Union began constructing the radar station near Krasnoyarsk that violated the ABM Treaty. After the insistent demands of the United States the construction had been ceased.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and beginning of the privatization many large plants and factories, such as the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, have become owned by criminal authorities and oligarchs while others were declared bankrupt, this begot the dramatic raise of unemployment and numerous strikes.
Certain problems with ownership of Krasnoyarsk plants continue nowadays since nearly all of them are owned either by monopolistic financial groups or by oligarchs. The most known financial scandal of the second half of 1990's had happened when ownership of the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant by a known Krasnoyarsk businessman Anatoliy Bykov had been cancelled after accusation him of the murder of this partner Vilor Struganov. The murder eventually turned out to be fictional.
Since the election of Pyotr Pimashkov as the mayor of Krasnoyarsk in 1996 the look of the city began to slowly improve: old historical buildings were restored, asphalt walkways have been replaced with paving-stone, numerous squares with fountains have been constructed. Now the major part of the city bears only a few traces of its poor Soviet look.
Architecture
There is a number of historical buildings in Krasnoyarsk, the oldest of them is the Intercession Cathedral (Покровский собор, 1785 to 1795, restored in 1977 to 1978). Other locally significant samples of Russian Orthodox architecture are the Annunciation Cathedral (Благовещенский собор, 1802-12), the St. Trinity Cathedral (Свято-Троицкий собор, 1802-12), John the Baptist Church (Церковь Иоанна Предтечи, 1899, former episcopal residence), and the new Michael the Archangel Church (Церковь Архистратига Михаила, 1998 to 2003).
On the top of the Karaulnaya hill, originally a pagan shrine, later occupied by the Krasnoyarsk fort watchtower, the St. Paraskeba Chapel (Часовня Параскевы Пятницы, 1804, rebuilt in 1854 to 1855) still stands. The chapel, displayed on the 10-ruble note, is one of iconic images of the city. The chapel was abandoned and fell into disrepair during the Soviet era and only when the Perestroyka came it had been regained by the Yenisei bishopric.
Another unofficial symbol of Krasnoyarsk is the incomplete 24 storey tower located at Strelka. Construction of the tower had been started just before Perestroyka and then frozen due to the administrative crisis. The outline of the tower is clearly seen from many places in the city.
A bridge near Krasnoyarsk carries the Trans-Siberian Railway across the Yenisei. This structure, one of the longest at the time, was constructed between 1893 and 1896 to an award-winning design by Lavr Proskuryakov. When approved for the inscription on the World Heritage List in 2003, the bridge was described by the UNESCO as "an early representation of a typical parabolic polygonal truss bridge in Russia" which became "a testing ground for the application of engineering theories and the development of new innovative solutions, which had numerous successors" ([1]).
Among other notable buildings are the mansions of the merchant Nikolay Gadalov (beginning of the 20th century), the Roman-Catholic Transfiguration Chapel (Преображенский собор, 1911, also known as the Krasnoyarsk Organ Hall), the Krasnoyarsk Krai Museum stylized as an Ancient Egyptian temple, the Krasnoyarsk Cultural/Historical Center and the triumphal arch at the Spit (2003), the regional administration building flanked with two towers known as the "Donkey Ears".
There is a number of 2-storey wooden houses in the city built mostly in the middle of the 20th century as temporary habitations. Many urbanized villages located inside the city keep the remnants of the traditional Russian village architecture: wooden houses with backyards, many somewhat dilapidated now but still inhabited.
Culture
Krasnoyarsk is the hometown of many famous people, some of whom are well-known throughout the world. The most prominent culture figures are the world-famous historic painter Vasily Surikov, the classic writer Viktor Astafiev, the world-class opera singers Pyotr Slovtsov and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. The other honourable artists are the painters Andrey Pozdeev, Valeriy Kudrinskiy and Toivo Rännel, sculptors Boris Musat and Yuriy Zlotya, writers Roman Solntsev and Nikolay Gayduk.
There is a number of local holidays celebrated annually in Krasnoyarsk. The most significant holiday is the Day of the City (Russian: День города) hilariously celebrated in June, usually with the carnival. Other holidays and cultural events are: the Mana Festival (Russian: Манский фестиваль) usually held on last weekend of June with the traditional bard contest, the International Museum Biennale traditionally held in the Krasnoyarsk Cultural/Historical Center, the avant-garde Museum Night (Russian: Музейная ночь) festival dedicated to the International Museum Day (May 18), the Jazz on Yenisey (Russian: Джаз на Енисее) festival, the Stolbist Day (Russian: День столбиста) held many times a year celebrating the traditions of mountain climbing in the Stolby national reserve, the Bikers' Rally (Russian: Слёт байкеров).
Krasnoyarsk has a number of local television companies and the highly-developed telecommunications, many districts of the city have LAN-based broadband Internet access.
Education
Next to Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk is a very prominent scientific and educational center of Siberia with more than 30 higher education facilities, many of which are the branches of the Russian Academy of Science, and about 200 high schools. The most notable higher education institutes are:
- Krasnoyarsk State University (Russian abbreviation is KGU), founded in 1963 as a division of Novosibirsk State University, became standalone university in 1969
- Krasnoyarsk State Technical University (Russian abbreviation is KGTU), founded in 1956
- Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University (Russian abbreviation is KGPU), founded in 1932
- Siberian State Technological University (Russian abbreviation is SibGTU), the oldest in the city, founded in 1930 as the Siberian Institute of Forest
- Sukachev Institute of Forest, founded in 1944
Similarly to Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk has the special city district called Akademgorodok (Academic Town in Russian) where many of the institutes are located. There, in the Institute of Biophysics, the experiment on ecological isolation of human beings called "Bios", similar to the US experiment Biosphere 2, has been successfully held in 1973-1985.
Tourism
The most popular place of attraction for tourists visiting Krasnoyarsk is the huge national nature reserve Stolby (Pillars in Russian) or the Rock Pillars. Stolby covers an area of 470 km² (181 mile²) with numerous giant granite rocks formations up to 100 meters high, many of very extraordinary shapes. Stolby is also a major rock climbing location, many local climbers intentionally do not use any belaying equipment and call their extreme sport "stolbizm", which is known around the world as solo climbing.
Other popular showplaces include the Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Power Station dam, the Karaulnaya Gora hill with the Paraskeva Pyatnitsa Chapel, museums, theaters, etc.
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