Encyclopedia
Krasnoyarsk is the administrative center of
Krasnoyarsk Krai,
Russia, and the third largest city in
Siberia, having a population of 909,341 as of the 2002 Census. It lies on the
Yenisei River and is an important station on the
Trans-Siberian railway.
Geography
Krasnoyarsk is located at . The total area of the city including suburbs and the river is 172 square kilometres. January's average temperature is −20°C, July—+18°C. The minimum temperature ever recorded was —56°C, and the maximum was—+36°C.
The city straddles the
Yenisei River, which flows from
west to
east through town. Due to the
hydroelectric power station 32 km upstream, the Yenisei never freezes in winter and never exceeds 14°C in summer through the city. Its water level near the city center is 136 meters from
sea level. There are several islands in the river, the largest of which are Tatyshev and Otdyha Isles, which are used mainly for recreation.
To the south and west, Krasnoyarsk is surrounded by forested hills averaging 410 m in height above river level. Further south are the gigantic rock cliffs of the Stolby Nature Reserve rising from the surrounding hills. The western hills form the Gremyachinskaya Griva crest, starting from the Nikolayevskaya Sopka hill and extending westwards up to the Sobakina River. The terrain north of town is rather plain, with forests to the northwest and agricultural fields to the north and east.
Geological Features
The most prominent hills in the Krasnoyarsk area are:
- Nikolayevskaya Sopka
- Karaulnaya Gora
- Chornaya Sopka
- Drokinskaya
The major rivers located in the Krasnoyarsk area are:
- Mana
- Bazaikha
- Kacha
- Yesaulovka
- Beryozovka
- Karaulnaya
- Slizneva River
- Listvennaya River
- Zarechnaya Listvyanka
- Minzhul
- Sobakina
- Krutenkaya
- Laletina
Due to the specifics of the relief there are few natural lakes exist in the Krasnoyarsk neighborhood.
The nearby towns are :
Urban structure
Krasnoyarsk is divided into seven administrative districts:
- Kirovsky
- Leninsky
- Oktyabrsky
- Sovetsky
- Sverdlovsky
- Tsentralny
- Zheleznodorozhny
Demographics
The population count dynamic by years:
| 1897 | 26,600 | 1962 | 465,000 | 1982 | 833,000 | 2000 | 875,500 |
| 1923 | 60,400 | 1967 | 576,000 | 1986 | 885,000 | 2001 | 875,900 |
| 1926 | 72,200 | 1970 | 648,000 | 1989 | 912,600 | 2002 | 909,341 |
| 1939 | 190,000 | 1973 | 707,000 | 1992 | 925,000 | 2005 | 917,200 |
| 1956 | 328,000 | 1976 | 758,000 | 1996 | 871,100 | | |
| 1959 | 412,000 | 1979 | 796,300 | 1998 | 875,300 | | |
Population count by districts :
- Kirovsky: 117,156
- Leninsky: 146,943
- Oktyabrsky: 138,521
- Sovetsky: 231,696
- Sverdlovsky: 130,518
- Tsentralny: 54,503
- Zheleznodorozhny: 90,004
The population of Krasnoyarsk includes a number of peoples, the most numerous are
Russians,
Ukrainians,
Tatars,
Germans and
Belarusians. Of the late years the number of
Tajiks,
Uzbeks and other
Central Asian and
Caucasian peoples has extensively grown because of the vast, often illegal immigration in search for work.
Another multitudinous immigrants are
Chinese who, in opposite to other
foreign workers, are employed in much more lucrative areas and often doing co-operative business with local companies. Many [Chinese are busy in trading at
bazaars, there even exists a special large Chinese
bazaar named
Sodruzhestvo and the
Chinese Trading Town or colloquially
Kitai-gorod situated at Strelka.
History
The city was founded in July of 1628 as a Russian border fort. The group of service class people led by the
Cossack Andrey Dubenskoy arrived to the confluence of the Kacha River with the
Yenisei River and constructed fortifications intended to protect the frontier from attacks of native peoples who lived along Yenisei and its tributaries. In the letter to
Tsar the
Cossacks reported:
- ...The town of trunks we have constructed and around the place of fort, we the servants of ye lord, have embedded posts and fastened them with double bindings and the place of fort have strengthened mightily...
The fort have been named "Krasny Yar" after the local
Turkic name of the place it was built by: "Kyzyl Dzhar", meaning "Red Cliff" or "Krasny Yar" in old Russian. The name "Krasnoyarsk" was given later when the village of Krasnyy Yar has received the town status.
The intensive growth of Krasnoyarsk began with the arrival of the Moscow Postroad in 1735 to 1741 which connected the nearby towns of
Achinsk and Kansk with Krasnoyarsk and with the rest of
Russia. The growth was later spurred on by the discovery of gold and by the arrival of the railroad in 1895.
In the 19th century Krasnoyarsk was the center of the
Siberian
Cossack movement. In 1822 it had gained the status of town and had become the capital of the Yenisei Guberniya. In the end of the
19th century Krasnoyarsk had several manufacturing facilities, railroad workshops and an engine-house.
In
Imperial Russia Krasnoyarsk was the one of the places to which political exiles were banished. For example, eight
Decembrists were deported from
St. Petersburg to Krasnoyarsk after the failure of the revolt.
After the
Russian Revolution of 1917 during the periods of centralized planning numerous large plants and factories were constructed in Krasnoyarsk: Sibtyazhmash, the
dock yard, the paper factory, the
hydroelectric power station , the river port.
In 1934 the second largest Russian region,
Krasnoyarsk Krai, was formed. Krasnoyarsk was established as the administrative center.
During the epoch of
Stalinism, Krasnoyarsk was a major center of the
Gulag system. The most important labor camp was the Kraslag or
Krasnoyarskiy ITL with the two units located in Kansk and Reshyoty. In Krasnoyarsk itself the Yeniseylag or
Yeniseiskiy ITL labor camp existed during
World War II .
During World War II dozens of factories were evacuated from
Ukraine and western
Russia to Krasnoyarsk and nearby towns, stimulating the industrial growth of the city. After the war additional large plants were constructed: the aluminum plant, the metallurgic plant, the plant of base metals and many others.
In the late 1970s, the
Soviet Union began constructing a phased array radar station at Abalakova, near Krasnoyarsk, which allegedly violated the ABM Treaty. Beginning in 1983, the
United States demanded its removal, until the Soviet Union admitted the radar station was a violation in 1989. Equipment was slowly removed from the site and by 1992 it was officially declared to be dismantled. The equipment from the site was likely relocated to a new site near Komsomolsk-na-Amure.
After the
collapse of the Soviet Union and beginning of the privatization many large plants and factories, such as the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, became owned by allegedly criminal authorities and oligarchs while others were declared
bankrupt. The economic transition resulted in a dramatic raise in
unemployment and numerous
strikes.
The best known financial scandal of the second half of 1990's had happened when ownership of the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant by a known Krasnoyarsk businessman
Anatoliy Bykov had been cancelled after accusation him of the murder of this partner Vilor Struganov. The murder eventually turned out to be fictional.
The Krasnoyarsk plants ownership problems continue through the early 21st century since nearly all of them are owned either by
monopolistic financial groups or by oligarchs and Russian commercial practices continue to evolve.
Since the election of Pyotr Pimashkov as the mayor of Krasnoyarsk in 1996 the look of the city began to slowly improve: old historical buildings were restored, asphalt walkways have been replaced with paving-stone, and numerous squares with fountains have been constructed. Now the major part of the city bears only a few traces of its pragmatic
Soviet look.
Coat of arms
The first version of the Krasnoyarsk coat of arms was approved on March 12, 1804. The coat of arms was divided horizontally into two parts, the upper part contained the coat of arms of the Tomsk Guberniya, the lower part had the picture of the Krasny Yar cliff on the silver background.
A riveised coat of arms, approved on November 23, 1851, had the golden figure of a lion placed on the red
heraldic shield with a spade in the right fore paw and a sickle in the left fore paw, both made of the same metal. The shield was topped with the golden crown of the
Russian Empire.
The current coat of arms approved on November 28, 2004 contains the same red shield with the slightly changed figure of the lion topped with the golden five-tower status crown of a
federal subject center.
In 2005, the 16 meters tall pillar with the bronze statue of the Krasnoyarsk heraldic lion upon its top was erected at the Krasnoyarsk Railway Station square.
Architecture
There is a number of historical buildings in Krasnoyarsk, the oldest of them is the Intercession Cathedral . Other locally significant samples of
Russian Orthodox architecture are the Annunciation Cathedral , the St. Trinity Cathedral , John the Baptist Church , and the new Michael the Archangel Church .
On the top of the Karaulnaya hill, originally a pagan shrine, later occupied by the Krasnoyarsk fort watchtower, the St. Paraskeba Chapel still stands. The chapel, displayed on the 10-
ruble note, is one of iconic images of the city. The chapel was abandoned and fell into disrepair during the
Soviet era and only when the
Perestroyka came it had been regained by the Yenisei
bishopric.
Another unofficial symbol of Krasnoyarsk is the incomplete 24 storey tower located at Strelka. Construction of the tower had been started just before
Perestroyka and then frozen due to the administrative crisis. The outline of the tower is clearly seen from many places in the city.
A bridge near Krasnoyarsk carries the
Trans-Siberian Railway across the
Yenisei. This structure, one of the longest at the time, was constructed between 1893 and 1896 to an award-winning design by
Lavr Proskuryakov. When approved for the inscription on the
World Heritage List in 2003, the bridge was described by the
UNESCO as "an early representation of a typical parabolic polygonal
truss bridge in Russia" which became "a testing ground for the application of engineering theories and the development of new innovative solutions, which had numerous successors" .
Among other notable buildings are the mansions of the merchant Nikolay Gadalov , the Roman-Catholic Transfiguration Chapel , the Krasnoyarsk Krai Museum stylized as an
Ancient Egyptian temple, the Krasnoyarsk Cultural/Historical Center and the triumphal arch at the Spit , the
flanked with two towers known as the "Donkey Ears".
There is a number of 2-storey wooden houses in the city built mostly in the middle of the
20th century as temporary habitations. Many urbanized villages located inside the city keep the remnants of the traditional Russian village architecture: wooden houses with backyards, many somewhat dilapidated now but still inhabited.
Culture
Krasnoyarsk is the hometown of many famous people, some of whom are well-known throughout the world. The most prominent culture figures are the world-famous historic painter
Vasily Surikov, the classic writer
Viktor Astafiev, the world-class opera singers Pyotr Slovtsov and
Dmitri Hvorostovsky. The other honourable artists are the painters Andrey Pozdeev, Valeriy Kudrinskiy and Toivo Rännel, sculptors Boris Musat and Yuriy Zlotya, writers Roman Solntsev and Nikolay Gayduk.
There is a number of local holidays celebrated annually in Krasnoyarsk. The most significant holiday is the
Day of the City celebrated in June, usually with the
carnival. Other holidays and cultural events are: the
Mana Festival usually held on last weekend of June with the traditional
bard contest, the International Museum Biennale traditionally held in the Krasnoyarsk Cultural/Historical Center, the
avant-garde Museum Night festival dedicated to the International Museum Day , the
Jazz on Yenisey festival, the
Stolbist Day held many times a year celebrating the traditions of
mountain climbing in the Stolby national reserve, the
Bikers' Rally.
Krasnoyarsk has a number of local
television companies and the highly-developed
telecommunications, many districts of the city have
LAN-based broadband
Internet access.
Education
Next to
Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk is a very prominent scientific and educational center of
Siberia with more than 30
higher education facilities, many of which are the branches of the
Russian Academy of Science, and about 200
high schools. The most notable
higher education institutes are:
- Krasnoyarsk State University , founded in 1963 as a division of Novosibirsk State University, became standalone university in 1969
- Krasnoyarsk State Technical University , founded in 1956
- Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University , founded in 1932
- Siberian State Technological University , the oldest in the city, founded in 1930 as the Siberian Institute of Forest
- Siberian State Aerospace University , founded in 1960
- Krasnoyarsk State Medical Academy , founded in 1942
- Sukachev Institute of Forest, founded in 1944
Similarly to
Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk has the special city district called
Akademgorodok where many of the institutes are located. There, in the Institute of Biophysics, the experiment on
ecological isolation of
human beings called "Bios", similar to the US experiment
Biosphere 2, has been successfully held in 1973-1985.
Metro
An underground network has been planned in Krasnoyarsk for decades. The first three stations have not been opened yet, but several construction sites around the city are visible. There is no fixed date when the first trains start to run.
Tourism
The most popular place of attraction for tourists visiting Krasnoyarsk is the huge national nature reserve Stolby or the
Rock Pillars. Stolby covers an area of 470 km² with numerous giant
granite rocks formations up to 100 meters high, many of very extraordinary shapes. Stolby is also a major rock climbing location, many local climbers intentionally do not use any belaying equipment and call their extreme sport "stolbizm", which is known around the world as solo climbing.
Other popular showplaces include the
Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Power Station dam, the Karaulnaya Gora hill with the Paraskeva Pyatnitsa Chapel, museums, theaters, etc.
External links
