Founding
capital city of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia
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Ufa is the capital and largest city of Bashkortostan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Belaya and Ufa rivers, in the centre-north of Bashkortostan, on hills forming the Ufa Plateau to the west of the southern Ural Mountains, with a population of over 1.1 million residents, up to 1.4 million residents in the urban agglomeration. Ufa is the tenth-most populous city in Russia, and the fourth-most populous city in the Volga Federal District.
The city was founded in 1574, when a fortress was built on the site by the order of Ivan the Terrible. Ufa was made capital of Ufa Governorate in 1865 when the governorate split from Orenburg Governorate. Ufa's population expanded during the early 20th century.
Ufa's economy consists primarily of the oil refining, chemistry, and mechanical engineering industries; the petroleum company Bashneft and several of its subsidiaries are headquartered in Ufa. Ufa is an ethnically diverse city, home to a substantial number of ethnic Bashkirs and Tatars, with an ethnic Russian majority population. Several educational institutions are located in Ufa, including Bashkir State University, Ufa State Aviation Technical University, Ufa State Petroleum Technological University, and Ural State Law University. The city hosted separate summits of the BRICS group as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2015.
The name Ufa comes from the Ufa River on which the city lies, but the origin of the river's name is disputed. The Russian linguist Aleksandr Matveyev proposed that the name is of Iranian origin, from "ap", meaning water.
In a paper published in 2014, researchers Karimov and Khabibov from Bashkir State Pedagogical University present and argue for a hypothesis according to which before the construction of the foundational Russian fortress in 1574, which has since grown to become the current city of Ufa, there had already been an ancient settlement called Ufa on a hilltop near the mouth of the Ufa River. According to them, this settlement was founded by Turkic-speaking tribes to perform rituals and sacrifices to the sky god Tengri, and they called this place Upe or Ufe because, they argue, in ancient Turkic languages a place of ritual sacrifice used to be called an "opo" or an "ope." They further hypothesize that the inhabitants of the settlement themselves also came to be called the Upe or Ufe tribe and subsequently, the river along which they flourished and expanded their settlement towards its source also came to be called Ufa. Karimov and Khabibov claim that the Russian fortress builders were probably aware of this ancient name and consequently named their new settlement Ufa.
It is colloquially called the City of Three Screws, due to the unusual nature of city's name in Bashkir.
Early history of the surrounding area of Ufa dates back to Paleolithic times. Presumably, from the 5th to 16th centuries there was a medieval city on the site of Ufa. On the Pizzigano brothers' map (1367), and on the Catalan Atlas (1375), a town approximately on the Belaya River was designated as Pascherti (Bashkort), and Gerardus Mercator's map (1554) also marked the settlement with the name Pascherti. French orientalist Henri Cordier associates the position of Pascherti with the current location of Ufa.
Ibn Khaldun called the town, among the largest cities of the Golden Horde, Bashkort.
Russian historian of the 18th century Peter Rychkov wrote that there was a great city on the territory of Ufa before the arrival of the Russians.
The official of the Orenburg Governorate government Vasily Rebelensky wrote that Ufa was founded by the Bashkirs.
By order of Ivan the Terrible, a fortress was built on the site of modern Ufa in 1574, and originally bore the name of the hill it stood on, Tura-Tau. 1574 is now considered to be the official date of Ufa's foundation. Town status was granted to it in 1586.
Before becoming the seat of a separate Ufa Governorate in 1781, the city, along with the rest of the Bashkir lands, was under the jurisdiction of the Orenburg governors. And even though the 1796 reform reunited Orenburg and Ufa again, in 1802, the city of Ufa became a new center of the entire Orenburg Governorate that included large territories of modern-day Republic of Bashkortostan, Orenburg Oblast, and Chelyabinsk Oblast.
Monuments were erected in two of the city's graveyards to commemorate those shot and buried in the 1930s, during and before the Great Terror.
The Belaya River Waterway (1870) and the Samara-Zlatoust Railroad (1890) connected the city to the European part of the Russian Empire and stimulated the development of the city's light industry. During World War II, following eastward Soviet retreat in 1941, the Abwehr operated in Ufa, 1941–1943, some German infiltration, occurred 1914–1943 in espionage, many industrial enterprises of the western parts of the Soviet Union were evacuated to Ufa. On 4 June 1989, the Ufa train disaster occurred about 75 kilometers away from the city when a pipeline leak released gas near a railway line. When two trains approached, the sparks from the brakes of one train ignited the gas, causing an explosion which killed 575 people.
Ufa is the capital of the republic and, within the framework of the administrative divisions, it also serves as the administrative center of Ufimsky District, even though it is not a part of it. As an administrative center, it is, together with twenty-four rural localities, incorporated separately as the city of republic significance of Ufa, an administrative unit with status equal to that of the districts, and is likewise home to a unit of Russia's Central Military District; the 12th Separate Guards Engineer Brigade. As a municipal division, the city of republic significance of Ufa is incorporated as Ufa Urban Okrug.
Ufa is divided into seven administrative districts.
According to Forbes, in 2013, Ufa was the best city in Russia for business among cities with a population of over one million.
Many urban enterprises engaged in oil refining, chemistry, and mechanical engineering reside in Ufa. Additionally, the economy of Ufa is composed of many fuel, energy, and engineering complexes.
Ufa is home to about 200 large and medium industrial enterprises.
Some important enterprises in Ufa include:
Ufa Station is linked to the rest of Russia, being on a historic branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Ufa is the only city connected to Moscow by more than one federal highway. The M7 motorway links the city to Kazan and Moscow and the M5 motorway links Ufa to Moscow and to the Asian part of Russia.
The Ufa International Airport has international flights to Turkey, Tajikistan, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Cyprus as well as domestic flights to many Russian cities and towns, including Moscow.
The Ufa Metro is a planned and oft-delayed subway system, discussed since the late 1980s. On May 30, 1996, there was a ceremony marking the beginning of preparatory construction work, attended by then-President Boris Yeltsin.
Public transportation in Ufa includes trams (since 1937) and trolleybuses (since 1962), as well as bus and marshrutka (routed cabs) lines.
The population of Ufa exceeded one million in 1980. It ranks 10th among Russian cities by population, and the 26th among cities in Europe by city proper. As of January 1, 2009, the city accounted for 25.4% of all residents of the republic or 42.2% of the urban population.
As of the 2021 Census, the ethnic composition of Ufa was:
Ufa is situated in Eastern Europe near its land boundary with Northern Asia, at the confluence of the Belaya (Agidel) and Ufa Rivers, on low hills forming the Ufa Plateau to the west of the southern Urals. The area of the city is 707.93 km2 (273.33 sq mi). It stretches from north to south for 53.5 km (33.2 mi) and from west to east for 29.8 km (18.5 mi).
Ufa has a warm summer continental climate (Köppen: Dfb). Ufa's climate is characterized by harsh winters, but in some cases, summers can be quite long and hot. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Ufa was −48.5 °C (−55.3 °F) on January 1, 1979. The highest temperature ever recorded was 39.4 °C (102.9 °F) on July 10, 2023.
Periodically, a suffocating, unpleasant chemical odor can be smelled in the Ufa region. The media reports about the smell come out with an impressive regularity. Not all these reports are groundless, and the culprits are getting out of responsibility due to the fact that there is no Continuous Emission Control System (CEMS) in the city.
There are no street vacuum cleaners, road vacuum sweepers, or industrial (street) vacuum cleaners on the streets. Unfortunately, there is a complete lack of sanitation services in the city.
According to the letter of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) No. 20-18 / 218 of 11.07.18: "In the framework of solving problems at the federal level in the implementation of the state monitoring of atmospheric air, the territorial office of Roshydromet – FGBU Bashkir UGMS monitors pollution of atmospheric air in Ufa at nine stationary posts of the state observation network located in different parts of the city to estimate the level of air pollution generated by the total release and stationary and mobile sources of pollutants. Suspended substances (dust) are measured at all nine posts of the state observation network. The results of observations of the pollutants content are presented on the official website of the Bashkir State Hydrometeorological Service in the section "Monitoring of environmental pollution" daily and monthly. In 2017, the maximum single concentration of suspended solids reached 4.6 MPC m. in March 2017, at the address: Oktyabrya Ave., 141, located near the motorway with heavy traffic, and in April 2017 at the post: Dostoyevsky St., 102/1, located in the area of the industrial enterprise. During 2017 almost all posts of the state observation network recorded exceedances of a single concentration of suspended substances. At the same time, in order to implement regional state environmental oversight aimed at preventing, detecting, and suppressing violations by public authorities, local authorities, and legal entities, individual entrepreneurs and citizens of requirements in the field of atmospheric air protection, under the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment of the Republic Bashkortostan operates the State Bank of the Republic of Belarus "Office of State Analytical Control," to whose tasks, including GSI "organization of periodic environmental monitoring mobile laboratories in the areas where the population lives in the republic and in the zones of protective measures in the system of the general program of integrated environmental and sanitary-hygienic monitoring." Going to the site found that all 9 posts of the state observational network of Roshydromet are located at a considerable distance from the area of Inors and Sipaylovo, from residential areas. Control of MPC and air quality in residential areas is not carried out.
The bodies of local self-government of Ufa are:
The Stroitel Stadium is a sports stadium located north of the centre of the city, off the Aleksandra Nevskogo Ulitsa street in Neftekhimikov (Petrochemists') Park. The stadium is primarily an Ice speedway venue.
Bashkiria Ufa were one of the most successful speedway clubs in the country. They won the Soviet Union Championship eleven times from 1962 to 1988 but disbanded in 1998. They raced at the Trud Stadium (Ufa), which was demolished in 2005, making way for the Ufa Arena.
Educational institutions include:
Graduate universities and law schools:
Scientific institutions include:
Text from the Wikipedia article “Ufa”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.