Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Founding
Founding of Chelyabinsk
city in Russia, capital city of Chelyabinsk Oblast
- 1736
- Europe
Founding
city in Russia, capital city of Chelyabinsk Oblast
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Chelyabinsk is the administrative center and largest city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the seventh-largest city in Russia, with a population of over 1.1 million people, and the second-largest city in the Ural Federal District, after Yekaterinburg. Chelyabinsk is located to the east behind the south part of the Ural Mountains and runs along the Miass River.
The area of Chelyabinsk contained the ancient settlement of Arkaim, which belonged to the Sintashta culture. In 1736, a fortress by the name of Chelyaba was founded on the site of a Bashkir village. Chelyabinsk was granted town status by 1787. Chelyabinsk began to grow rapidly by the early 20th century as a result of the construction of railway links from the Russian core to Siberia, including the Trans-Siberian Railway. Its population reached 70,000 by 1917. Under the Soviet Union, Chelyabinsk became a major industrial centre during the 1930s. The Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant was built in 1933. During World War II, the city was a major contributor to the manufacture of tanks and ammunition.
In the 1990s and 2000s, a number of industries in Chelyabinsk ceased to exist due to the difficult economic situation, As of the 2020s, it continues to experience difficulties in the areas of ecology, economic spheres, and urban improvement. Nevertheless, it is one of the largest industrial centers of the Urals, where industry accounts for almost 40% of the gross municipal product, especially heavy industries such as metallurgy and military production. It is home to several educational institutions, mainly South Ural State University and Chelyabinsk State University.
Archaeologists have discovered ruins of the ancient town of Arkaim in the vicinity of the city of Chelyabinsk. Ruins and artifacts in Arkaim and other sites in the region indicate a relatively advanced civilization existing in the area since the 2nd millennium BC, which was of proto-Indo-Iranian origin.
The Arkaim site, located in the Sintashta-Petrovka cultural area, was known by Russian archaeologists for at least 70 years, but it was mostly ignored by non-Russian anthropological circles. The borders of the Sintashta-Petrovka cultural area run along the eastern Urals of the Eurasian steppe to about 400 km (249 mi) south of Chelyabinsk and to the east for about 200 km (124 mi). Twenty-three archaeological sites are recognized as being part of this area.
The sites resemble towns, laid out in round, square, or oval shapes. Although most of the sites have been discovered by aerial photography, only two, Arkaim and Sintashta, have been thoroughly excavated. These sites are characterized by their fortification, connected houses, and extensive evidence of metallurgy.
The people of the Sintashta culture are thought to have spoken Proto-Indo-Iranian, the ancestor of the Indo-Iranian language family. This identification is based primarily on similarities between their language in comparison to sections of the Rigveda, and based on funerary rituals of the Sintashta culture, as revealed by archaeological studies in the area.
The fortress of Chelyaba, from which the city takes its name, was founded at the location of the Bashkir village of Chelyaby (Bashkir: Силәбе, romanized: Siläbe) by Colonel Alexey (Kutlu-Muhammed) Tevkelev in 1736 to protect the surrounding trade routes from possible attacks by Bashkir outlaws. During Pugachev's Rebellion, the fortress withstood a siege by the rebel forces in 1774, but was eventually captured for several months in 1775. In 1782, Chelyabinsk became a seat of the uyezd of Ufa Viceroyalty, which was later reformed into Orenburg Governorate. In 1787, Chelyabinsk was granted town status by the government.
Until the late 19th century, Chelyabinsk was a small provincial town. In 1892, the Samara-Zlatoust Railway was completed, which connected it with Moscow and the rest of European Russia. Also in 1892, construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway started from Chelyabinsk, and in 1896, the city was linked to Ekaterinburg. Chelyabinsk then became the main hub for travel to Siberia. For 15 years, more than fifteen million people – a tenth of Russia's population at the time – passed through Chelyabinsk. Some of them remained in Chelyabinsk, which contributed to its rapid growth. In addition, a so-called "customs fracture" was created in Chelyabinsk, which imposed duties on the shipment of goods between the European and Asian parts of Russia, which led to the emergence of mills and notably, a tea-packing factory. As a result, Chelyabinsk became a major trade center. Its population reached 20,000 inhabitants by 1897, 45,000 by 1913, and 70,000 by 1917. Because of its rapid growth at the turn of the 20th century, similar to that of midwestern American cities, Chelyabinsk was sometimes called "the Chicago of the Urals".
During the first five-year plans of the 1930s, Chelyabinsk experienced rapid industrial growth. Several important factories, including the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, were built at this time. During World War II, Joseph Stalin decided to move a large part of Soviet manufacturing to areas removed from the reach of the advancing German military as part of a general exodus from western occupied areas. This brought new industries and thousands of workers to Chelyabinsk, including facilities for the production of T-34 tanks and Katyusha rocket launchers. During World War II, the city's industries produced 18,000 tanks and 48,500 tank diesel engines as well as over 17 million units of ammunition. During that time Chelyabinsk was informally called "Tankograd" ("Tank City"). During World War II, the S.M. Kirov Factory no. 185 or "OKMO" was moved to Chelyabinsk from Leningrad to produce heavy tanks, although it was transferred to Omsk after 1962.
Shortly after dawn on 15 February 2013, a superbolide meteor descended at over 55,000 kilometers per hour (34,000 mph) over the Ural Mountains, exploding at an altitude of 25–30 kilometers (16–19 mi).
The meteor created a momentary flash brighter than the sun and generated a shock wave that injured over a thousand people. Fragments fell in and around Chelyabinsk. Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said 1,100 people had called for medical assistance following the incident, mostly for treatment of injuries from broken glass by the explosions. One woman suffered a broken spine. Kolesnikov also said about 600 square meters (6,000 sq ft) of a roof at a zinc factory had collapsed. A spokeswoman for the Emergency Ministry told the Associated Press that there was a meteor shower; however, another ministry spokeswoman was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying it was a single meteor. The size has been estimated at 17 meters (56 ft) diameter with a mass of 10,000 to 11,000 metric tons (22–24 million lb). The power of the explosion was about 500 kilotons of TNT (about 1.8 PJ), which is 20–30 times more energy than was released from the atomic bomb detonated in Hiroshima. The city avoided larger casualties and destruction due to the shallow entry angle of the meteor, which caused a relatively high altitude for the explosion and distributed its energy over a larger area.
Chelyabinsk is the administrative center of the oblast. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as the City of Chelyabinsk, an administrative unit with a status equal to that of the oblast's districts. As a municipal division, the City of Chelyabinsk is incorporated as Chelyabinsky Urban Okrug. In June 2014, Chelyabinsk's seven city districts were granted civil status.
Chelyabinsk is divided into seven administrative districts.
Chelyabinsk is located east behind the south part of the Ural Mountains, 200 kilometres (124 mi) south of Yekaterinburg. It is elevated 200–250 metres (656–820 ft) above sea level.
The city is bisected by the Miass River, which is regarded as the border between the Urals and Siberia. This is reflected in the geology of the area, with the granite foothills of the Ural Mountains to the west and the lower sedimentary rock of the West Siberian Plain to the east.
The Leningrad Bridge crosses the river, due to this it is known as "the bridge between the Urals and Siberia". Chelyabinsk itself is also known as "the gateway to Siberia".
Like Rome, Constantinople, San Francisco and Moscow, Chelyabinsk is said to be located on seven hills.
The city of Chelyabinsk developed as a fortress. The first streets began to appear soon after the construction of the fortress on the right (southern) bank of the Miass River - already in September 1736. No residential buildings were built directly in the fortress itself; the houses of the inhabitants were located in the adjoining settlement, which was surrounded by a defensive wall. The very first street was formed between the northern wall of the fortress and the Miass River. A fragment of it is shown already in the foreground of the Chelyabinsk Fortress, attached by Colonel A.I. Tevkelev to his report to V.N. Tatishchev on 10 September 1736. Soon it received the name Sibirskaya (now Truda Street), since outside Chelyabinsk it crossed into the Siberian tract leading to Tobolsk. Apparently, there were also other names: in a number of sources it is called Bolshaya Beregovaya, as mentioned in a document dated 10 March 1753. The western end of the street in the last years of the 18th century acquired an independent name – on the pasture near the outskirts of the Ivanovo fair appeared. Apparently, according to it, this part of the street began to be called Sibirskaya-Ivanovskaya (as it is called in the list of 1795). Then, already in the 19th century, it was a little later upstream and downstream of the Miass (that is, west and east of the fortress). Perpendicular to the river, several more streets were planned. At first, there were four of them – two each on the western and eastern sides. The first street to the east got its name from the first Chelyabinsk church, consecrated in 1739 in honor of Nicholas the Wonderworker – Nikolayevskaya street (nowadays Sovetskaya). It was one-sided and went west towards the church and the fortress. After the Chelyabinsk fortress was assigned the status of the center of the Isetskaya province in 1743, the construction of administrative buildings began here, and another street was formed between Nikolaevskaya Street and the square with the church, ending in the south with the Orenburg Gate and continuing further after the then city limit by the road to Orenburg - Orenburgskaya (now Tsvillinga Street). On Orenburgskaya Street, in 1787 only four courtyards were counted, and in the list of 1795 it was already called Khristorozhdestvenskaya, and there were eleven courtyards on it. In the 18th and first half of the 19th century, Khristorozhdestvenskaya Street was the main street in the city, it was the place where its social and business life was concentrated. The urban planning on the territory of the historical center of Chelyabinsk almost without changes coincides with the plan of Chelyabinsk in 1838. The Chelyabinsk fortress was built in the center of this territory in 1736. The plan of 1784 was supposed to streamline not only the layout of the city but the development and maintenance of quarters. Along with the city center, a district center and a second city square are being laid in the riverside part. The plans of 1768 and 1784 were not carried out, though the existing Troitskaya Square, Truda Street and Tsvilinga Street are historical traces remained of them. In 1838, the land surveyor Sidorov drew up a new plan to streamline the city. In many ways, it was the starting point for the further development of the city.
By 1934, during the Soviet period and the mass industrialization, about 250 thousand people lived in the city. Large-scale urban planning tasks necessitated the development of the first master plan of the city, executed under the guidance of the architect N. G. Eismont in 1936 (Leningrad-based Russian State Research and Design Institute of Urbanism, architects N. G. Berlinerblau, S. M. Gotlib, N. V. Gromov, K. M. Zaichenko and A. M. Suborov). The estimated population according to the general plan of 1936 was to reach 550 thousand people. The city developed around the historical core, including by cutting down the island birch forest, in the planning of the central part, a rectangular grid of streets was preserved, but with the enlargement of quarters. The Metallurgichesky, Traktorozavodsky and Leninsky districts were built and developed with heavy industry. Along with the city center, the centers of 5 administrative districts were planned, and interconnected by a system of transport highways. The main street – Spartak Street (now Lenin Avenue) – appears as a link between the Traktorozavodsky district, Revolution Square, and the future ensemble of the pre-park square. Historically developed streets of Kirov and Zwilling connected the main square of the city with the system of squares in Zarechye. The master plan of 1936 provided for the creation of urban recreation areas on the basis of Shershnevsky Bor and Lake Smolino, for the first time the issue of creating a large reservoir on the Miass River (Shershnevskoye Reservoir) was raised.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Chelyabinsk”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.