Founding
human settlement in Uryupinsk Urban Okrug, Volgograd Oblast, Russia
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Uryupinsk (Russian: Урю́пинск) is a town in Volgograd Oblast, Russia, located 340 kilometers (210 mi) northwest of Volgograd on the Khopyor River. Population: 41,590 (2010 census); 41,960 (2002 census); 42,954 (1989 Soviet census).
There are two theories of the historical background for the town's name. One is that it is from name of a Tartar prince Uryup, who got bogged down in a swamp near this location, during a fight with Yermak and got captured. Another is that it is from either the family name Uryupin or the word "урюпа" (uryupa). According to the 1866 Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language by Vladimir Dal, this archaic word means untidy person, which probably in this context characterizes not a person, but the swampy area.
Founded in the late 14th–early 15th century as Uryupin, it was a border outpost of the Principality of Ryazan, populated by Don Cossacks. Since 1857, it is the stanitsa Uryupinskaya and home of Pokrovskaya Fair, a center for trade on the southeastern side of the East European Plain. It was renamed Uryupinsk and granted town status in 1929.
According to the alphabetical list of settlements of the Donskoy Army region in 1915: 5,782 men and 6,316 women lived in the village, the land allotment of the village amounted to 25,354 tithes of land, the office of the district ataman, the district zemsky council, the district leader of the nobility, the postal and telegraph office, a real school, a women's gymnasium, a city school, a women's 4th grade a school, two two-class schools, two parish schools, a military craft school, a district hospital, a committee of the Russian Red Cross Society, a fire brigade, a commercial and industrial mutual credit society, the Ust-Medveditsky District Court, investigators of three sites, a notary, a prison and other officials and institutions
In 1921, the village was incorporated into the Tsaritsyn province. Since 1928, it has been the administrative center of the Uryupinsky district of the Khopersky district (abolished in 1930) The Lower Volga Region
It is assumed that it is listed in the historical List of Ruthenian Cities Far and Near under the name "Uryupesk" (Урюпеск).
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Uryupinsk serves as the administrative center of Uryupinsky District, even though it is not a part of it. As an administrative division, it is incorporated separately as the "town of oblast significance of Uryupinsk"—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the town of oblast significance of Uryupinsk is incorporated as Uryupinsk Urban Okrug.
Uryupinsk is an industrial center with heavy industries such as agricultural machinery (harvesting machines) and loading equipment (a large crane-making plant is located here). The city also contains factories of light industry production (such as knitted fabric, shoe fabric, and furniture fabric), paper production plant, and a packing plant.
Another major industry involving the outlying areas of the town is goat farming and goat leather production. Because of its mild southern climate, the region is a good area for agriculture, and there are many agricultural processing factories in the region, specializing mainly in beef, oil and butter production.
The name "Uryupinsk" is known to many Russian people as a placeholder name for "backwater town". This usage became widespread after the popular Soviet film Destiny of a Man. The film was based on a short story by Mikhail Sholokhov, "Fate of a Man", and in its final part Uryupinsk was the place of the action, shown as an inconspicuous provincial town. However the town got a widespread fame due to the following students' joke, to the extent that a monument to the joke was unveiled there:
At a history exam a professor asks: "Tell me about the Spartacus uprising." - Not a word from the student. - "Well, what do you know about the October Revolution?" - Same response. - "Now, do you know the name Lenin at least?" - "No" - The professor is speechless... "Where are you from, such a wonderful piece?" - "From Uryupinsk."... Later the professor recounts the story to the colleagues and muses "Oh, if only I could drop everything and leave to Uryupinsk!"
Text from the Wikipedia article “Uryupinsk”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.