Saratov
Saratov is a major city in southern European
Russia. It is the administrative center of
Saratov Oblast and a major port on the
Volga River, located at . Population: 873,055 . In addition to ethnic Russians, the city also has many Tatar, Ukrainian and German residents.
Encyclopedia
Saratov is a major city in southern European
Russia. It is the administrative center of
Saratov Oblast and a major port on the
Volga River, located at . Population: 873,055 . In addition to ethnic Russians, the city also has many Tatar, Ukrainian and German residents.
History
The Legend of Saratov: Gelonus, a legendary
Scythian city and the northernmost Greek colony, may be conjectured to have been situated in the locality of present-day Saratov. Gelonus is mentioned in Book 6 of the Histories of
Herodotus, according to whom in 512 B.C. the city was burnt down by the Emperor
Darius I of Persia.
A more certain ancestor city of Saratov was Ukek.
During the reign of
Tsar Feodor Ivanovich several settlements were built in order to fortify the state borders. During the summer of 1586 the fortress of
Samara was founded. In 1589, the fortress of Tsaritsyn was built in the region where the
Volga and the
Don come closest to each other. Saratov was built in 1590 midway between Samara and Tsaritsyn at the instigation of count Grigory Zasekin. The buildings were constructed of wood in the upper reaches of the
Volga one year prior to the foundation
in situ of the city. In spring the constructions were disassembled, every log marked, and all the town was delivered to the pre-defined place. Such a method allowed the town to be built in its entirety within several weeks.
The name Saratov may be conjectured to derive from the
Turkic words
Sari Taw which means ‘yellow mountain’. In Turkic the adjective ’yellow’ is a synonym for ’beautiful’, so the city name could also mean ’beautiful mountain’
Saratov became an important shipping port in the 1800s, and developed industrially after a
railroad linking it to
Moscow was finished in 1870.
From Soviet times until 1992, Saratov was a "closed city", strictly off limits to all foreigners. Situated on the Volga River, this was a major military aircraft manufacturing site, the home of the first man in space,
Yuri Gagarin, and a vital part of the Soviet space programme.
German community
Saratov was also the home of the
Volga Germans. Until 1941, Pokrovsk, known today as Engels, Russia, and located just across the Volga from Saratov, was the capital of a separate German republic. The Volga Germans numbered 800,000 in the early 20th century.
The Volga Germans included industrialists, scientists, musicians and architects, including those who built Saratov's university and Conservatory. At the outbreak of
World War II, half of the Volga Germans were exiled to
Siberia and
Kazakhstan, and few ever returned to the region. Beginning in the 1980s, many emigrated to
Germany, but the Roman Catholic St. Klementy Cathedral on Nemetskaya Street is a reminder of Saratov's German past, though it now functions as a movie theatre.
Modern Saratov
The Saratov region is rich not only in natural and industrial resources. The region is also famous for being one of the largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia. In Saratov there are six institutes affiliated with the
Russian Academy of Sciences, 21 research institutes, 19 project institutes, Saratov State University and many scientific and technological laboratories attached to the largest industrial enterprises.
Sightseeing, arts and culture
One of the city's most prominent landmarks is the
19th century neo-Gothic Conservatory. When it was built in 1912, the Conservatory was Russia's third such institution . At the time , Saratov, with a population of 240,000, was the third-largest city in present-day Russia.
Saratov is also famous for its Radishchev Art Gallery, named after
Alexander Radishchev. It contains more than 16,000 exhibits, including works by some of the finest Russian painters, from
Fyodor Rokotov to
Aleksandra Ekster.
Famous people
The Saratov region was birthplace or hometown, at one time or other, to politician
Pyotr Stolypin, biologist
Nikolai Vavilov, the notable professor and engineer Naum Rabovetsky,
painter Mikhail Vrubel,
aircraft designer Oleg Antonov, writer
Mikhail Bulgakov,
philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky,
architect Fyodor Shekhtel,
chemist Nikolai Zinin, poet
Gavrila Derzhavin, composer
Alfred Schnittke, academician Guriy Marchuk,
cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, space radio telephone communications designer Yuri Bykov, and billionaire businessman
Roman Abramovich.
- Gottlieb Nathaniel Bonwetsch, German Protestant theologain, born on Norka near Saratov
External links
