Krasnodar, formerly Yekaterinodar (until 1920), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The city stands on the Kuban River in southern Russia, with a population of 1,154,885 residents, and up to 1.263 million residents in the Urban Okrug. In the past decade Krasnodar has experienced rapid population growth, rising to become the tenth-largest city in Russia, and the largest city in southern Russia, as well as the Southern Federal District.
The city originated in 1793 as a fortress built by the Cossacks, and became a trading center for southern Russia. The city sustained heavy damage in World War II but was rebuilt and renovated after the war. Krasnodar is a major economic hub in southern Russia; In 2012, Forbes named Krasnodar the best city for business in Russia. Krasnodar is home to numerous sights, including the Krasnodar Stadium. Its main airport is Krasnodar International Airport.
Name
Krasnodar was founded in 1793 as Yekaterinodar (Екатеринода́р). The original name meant "Catherine's Gift", recognizing both Catherine the Great's grant of land in the Kuban region to the Black Sea Cossacks (created from former Zaporozhian Cossacks) and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who is considered to be the patron of the city. City status was granted in 1867.
On December 7, 1920, as a result of the October Revolution, Yekaterinodar was renamed Krasnodar (Gift of the Reds). The new name consists of Krasno- (Красно- – 'red', i.e. Communist, but also archaic/poetic form of 'beautiful'); and dar (дар – 'gift').
History
The city originated in 1793 as a military camp, then as a fortress built by the Black Sea Cossacks to defend imperial borders and to assert Russian dominion over Circassia, a claim which Ottoman Turkey contested. In the first half of the 19th century, Yekaterinodar grew into a busy center of the Kuban Cossacks, gaining official town status in 1867. By 1888, about 45,000 people lived in the city, which had become a vital trade center for southern Russia. In 1897 an obelisk commemorating the two-hundred-year history of the Kuban Cossacks (seen as founded in 1696) was erected in Yekaterinodar. The city was the administrative center of the Yekaterinodarsky Otdel of the Kuban Oblast.
During the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) the city changed hands several times, coming successively under the control of the Red Army and of the Volunteer Army. Many Kuban Cossacks, as committed anti-Bolsheviks, supported the White Movement. Lavr Kornilov, a White general, besieged the city on April 10, 1918, only to be killed a week later when a Bolshevik artillery shell blew up the farmhouse where he had set up his headquarters. During the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 Krasnodar lost over 14% of its population.
During World War II, units of the German Army occupied Krasnodar between August 9, 1942, and February 12, 1943 as part of Operation Edelweiss. The city sustained heavy damage in the fighting but was rebuilt and renovated after the war. German forces, including Gestapo and mobile SS execution squads, killed thousands of Jews, Communists, and suspected Communist partisans. Shooting, hanging, burning, and even gas vans were used.
In the summer of 1943, the Soviets began trials, including of their own citizens, for collusion with the Nazis and for participation in war crimes. The first such trial took place at Krasnodar from July 14 to 17, 1943. The Krasnodar tribunal pronounced eight death sentences, which were summarily carried out in the city square in front of a crowd of about thirty thousand people.
On June 14, 1971, a bombing occurred on a bus in the city, when a homemade suitcase bomb placed near the gas tank by a mentally ill Peter Volynsky exploded. The bomb killed 10 persons and wounded 20–90 others.
Geography
Krasnodar is the largest city and capital of Krasnodar Krai by population and the second-largest by area. It is the 17th-largest city in Russia as of 2010 and the 13th-largest city in Russia as of 2021. It is located on the right bank of the Kuban River. It is 1300 km south of the Russian capital, Moscow. The Black Sea lies 120 km to the west.
Climate
Under the Köppen climate classification, Krasnodar has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), bordering closely on a hot-summer humid continental climate, very similar to that of New York City.
Winters are cold and damp, with unstable snow cover. The average temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is 1 °C (34 °F). Weather conditions in winter vary greatly in the city; temperatures can exceed 20 °C (68 °F) for a few days, but temperatures below −20 °C (−4 °F) are not uncommon for Krasnodar as the city is not protected by mountains from cold waves. Summers are typically hot, with a July average of 24.1 °C (75.4 °F).
The city receives 735 millimeters (28.9 in) of precipitation annually, fairly spread throughout the year. Extreme storms are rare in the Krasnodar area. Extreme temperatures have ranged from −32.9 to 40.7 °C (−27.2 to 105.3 °F), recorded on January 11, 1940 and July 30, 2000, respectively.
Demographics
Due to internal migration, Krasnodar is one of the fastest growing cities in Russia. In the 2021 census, one million people were counted within the city limits for the first time in the city's history.
Per the 1897 imperial census, Krasnodar—then known as Yekaterinodar—had a population of 65,606. Of them, 34,684 (52.9%) spoke "Great Russian" (Russian), 25,112 (38.3%) "Little Russian" (Ukrainian), and 1,834 (2.8%) Armenian. In 1916, Yekaterinodar had a population of 103,624, composed of 88,508 Russians (85.4%, including Little Russians), 5,963 Europeans (5.8%), 5,900 Armenians (5.7%), and other nationalities.
Per the 1926 Soviet census, Krasnodar's population consisted of 82,818 Russians (51.17%), 48,511 Ukrainians (29.97%), 12,463 Armenians (7.70%), 2,948 Belarusians (1.82%), 1,746 Jews (1.08%), 1,316 Poles (0.81%), 1,105 Germans (0.68%) and 1,007 Greeks (0.62%), while 9,929 people (6.14%) belonged to other various minorities. The 1939 census saw a sharp decrease of people identified as Ukrainians. Of 203,806 people living in Krasnodar, 177,579 were listed as Russians and only 8,253 as Ukrainians. The amount of Armenians also decreased to 7,867.
As of 2021, the ethnic composition of Krasnodar was:
Economy
Krasnodar is the economic center of southern Russia. For several years, Forbes magazine named Krasnodar the best city for business in Russia. The industrial sector of the city has more than 130 large and medium-sized enterprises.
The main industries of Krasnodar:
- Agriculture and food industry: 42.8%
- Energy sector: 13.4%
- Fuel industry: 10.5%
- Machine construction: 9.4%
- Forestry and chemical industries: about 4%
Krasnodar is a highly developed commercial area, and has the largest annual turnover in the Southern Federal District of Russia. Retail trade turnover in 2010 reached 290 billion rubles. Per capita, Krasnodar has the highest number of malls in Russia. Note that in the crisis year 2009 turnover of Krasnodar continued to grow, while most of the cities showed a negative trend in the sale of goods.
Krasnodar has the lowest unemployment rate among the cities of the Southern Federal District at 0.3% of the total working-age population. In addition, Krasnodar holds the first place in terms of highest average salary – 21,742 rubles per capita.
Tourism comprises a large part of Krasnodar's economy. There are more than 80 hotels in Krasnodar. The Hilton Garden Inn, opened in 2013, is the first world-class hotel in the city.
Administrative and municipal status
Krasnodar is the administrative center of the krai. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is, together with twenty-nine rural localities, incorporated as the City of Krasnodar—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the City of Krasnodar is incorporated as Krasnodar Urban Okrug.
Culture
The oldest part of the city is Krasnodar Historic Center, which consists of many historic buildings, several from the 19th century. Buildings have been preserved, restored or reconstructed, and the district is now a substantial tourist attraction.
There are several major theater venues in Krasnodar:
- The Gorky Krasnodar State Academic Drama Theater
- The Krasnodar Ballet Theater
- The Krasnodar State Academic Drama Theater
- The Krasnodar Regional Puppet Theater
- The Krasnodar Musical Theater
- The Children's Ballet Theater "Fugitives"
- The Krasnodar State Circus
- The Krasnodar Youth Theater
- The Ponomarenko Krasnodar Philharmonic
- The Kuban Cossack Choir
- The Creative Association "Premiere"
- The New Puppet Theater
Krasnodar has several major museums. The Kovalenko Krasnodar Regional Art Museum, the oldest public art museum in the North Caucasus, is one of the finest.
The largest public library of the city is the Pushkin Krasnodar Regional Universal Scientific Library, founded in 1900.
Main sights
Krasnodar is home to the steel lattice hyperboloid tower built by the Russian engineer and scientist Vladimir Grigorievich Shukhov in 1928; it is located near Krasnodar Circus.
Other attractions include St. Catherine's Cathedral, the State Arts Museum, a park and theater named after Maxim Gorky, the beautiful concert hall of the Krasnodar Philharmonic Society, which is considered to have some of the best acoustics in southern Russia, State Cossack Choir and the Krasnodar circus
The central street of Krasnodar is Krasnaya Street (which translates as "Red" or "Beautiful Street"). Many of the city's sights are located there. At the beginning of the street, one can see the Central Concert Hall; at the other end, one can see the Avrora cinema center. A "Triumphal Arch" is situated in the middle of Krasnaya Street.
Theater Square is home to the largest splash fountain in Europe. This fountain was officially inaugurated on September 25, 2011 along with an official ceremony to celebrate the City Day in Krasnodar.
The best-known park of the city is the Krasnodar park (popularly known as Galitsky Park), a regular park located in the northeast of the downtown Krasnodar in the Shkolny microdistrict, between Vostochno-Kruglikovskaya and Hero Vladislav Posadsky streets, next to the FC Krasnodar stadium. The park was built at the expense of entrepreneur Sergey Galitsky and opened on September 28, 2017. The area is 22.7 hectares. More than 2.5 thousand trees are planted in the park: oak, hornbeam, alder, bonsai, poplar, pine, tulip tree, maple, thuja, decorative plum.
Sports
In amateur sport shinty in Russia has its centre in Krasnodar.
Several professional sports clubs are active in the city:
Transportation
As in many other major cities in Russia, the primary mode of local transportation in Krasnodar is the automobile, though efforts have been made to increase the availability of alternative modes of transportation, including the construction of light railways (projected), biking paths, and wide sidewalks. Public transportation within Krasnodar consists of city buses, trolleybuses, trams, and marshrutkas (routed taxis). Trolleybuses and trams, both powered by overhead electric wires, are the main form of public transportation in Krasnodar, which does not have a metro system.
The main airline was Kuban Airlines (at Krasnodar International Airport), but it closed down in 2012 and now the main ones are Aeroflot and Rossiya Airlines. The largest hotels in the city include the Intourist, Hotel Moskva, and Hotel Platan. Krasnodar uses a 220 V/50 Hz power supply with two round-pin outlets, like most European countries.
There are also two railway stations in Krasnodar: Krasnodar-1 and Krasnodar-2.
Education
In Krasnodar there are 15 gymnasiums (academic secondary schools) 5 lyceums (colleges of higher education), 110 schools of general education and 20 specialized schools, as well as 7 non-state lyceums and schools.
The city has numerous institutions of higher education, including some state universities (Kuban State University, Kuban State Technological University, Kuban State Agrarian University, Kuban State Medical University, etc.). Other universities include: Marketing and Social Technology University of Krasnodar.
Coat of arms
The coat of arms of Yekaterinodar was introduced in 1841 by the Cossack yesaul Ivan Chernik. The royal letter "E" in the middle is for Ekaterina II (Russian for Catherine II). It also depicts the date the city was founded, the Imperial double headed eagle (symbolizing Tsar's patronage of the Black Sea Cossacks), a bulawa of a Cossack ataman, Yekaterinodar fortress, and flags with letters "E", "P", "A", and "N" standing for Catherine II, Paul I, Alexander I and Nicholas I. Yellow stars around the shield symbolized 59 Black Sea stanitsas around the city.
International relations
Twin towns – sister cities
Krasnodar is twinned with: