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Kstovo
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Kstovo () is a town in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is located on the right bank of the Volga River, 22 km southeast of Nizhny Novgorod. It is the administrative center of Kstovsky District. Population: 66,944|2002 Census]]); 62,414|1989 Census]]).
History
The village of Kstovo was mentioned as early as the 14th century.
With the construction of Novogorkovsky Oil Refinery () in the 1950s, a new town was built a few kilometers to the south-east of the old Kstovo village, on the high ground between the Volga and the Kudma River.
Since then, the western part of the town centered around the original Kstovo village, and still quite rural in character, has been commonly referred to as the Old Kstovo (Staroye Kstovo), while the newer eastern part, built in the 1950s, and still expanding, is known as the New Kstovo (Novoye Kstovo). As the New Kstovo expanded over the years, it completely or partially displacing several smaller villages.
Kstovo was granted urban-type settlement status in 1954 and town status in 1957.
Economy
The main employer in the town, and, historically, the reason for the town's existence, is LUKOIL-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez (formerly NORSI-Oil and Novogorkovsky Oil Refinery).
There are also a bitumen plant, a wine/liquor distillery (, Mitsar), a tire repair & recycling plant,
and the usual assortment of local food industry enterprises. A cogeneration power plant (, Novogorkovskaya TETs) supplies electricity into the regional electric grid and hot water for heating city apartment buildings.
The town has a large farmer's market, and a decent selection of supermarkets and retail stores.
TransportKstovo is served by the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod-Kazan Highway (Highway M-7), a river tanker port on the Volga, an electric railroad branch, and oil pipelines.
The city has a history of building bypass roads to keep some of the transit traffic (either the east-west traffic on M-7, or traffic destined for the petrochemical industrial area south of the city) off the city streets, only to see the development overtake them a decade or so later, the "bypass" not being a true bypass anymore. Most recently, in 2003 a highway bypass was completed a few kilometers south of the city (cutting through a section of the Zelyony Gorod forest) both taking M-7 away from the city and providing convenient road access to the Lukoil area.
The Kstovo railroad branch is primarily used to serve the needs of the oil refinery. Although commuter trains from Nizhny Novgorod's Myza terminal stop not far from both the Old and the New Kstovo, the stations are not particularly conveniently located, the trains are fairly slow and only run 2-3 times a day, and are thus popular mostly with retirees and other persons eligible for free or discount fares.
Volga hydrofoil boats used to stop at Kstovo in the 1970s and 80s, but the town no longer appears in the boat schedules.
Therefore, most of passenger travel between Kstovo and Nizhny Novogorod is by road. i.e. by bus or private car. Commuter buses and "passenger vans" to Nizhny Novgorod, as well as suburban buses to villages throughout Kstovksy District run from a bus station on the west side of the New Kstovo. Some long-distance buses between Nizny Novgorod and points east stop there as well. There are also free shuttle buses from Kstovo's downtown Lenin Square to the Mega shopping mall in Fedyakovo, in the western part of Kstovsky District.
Most summers, during the beach season, ferry boat service operates between Kstovo and the beach area on the north bank of the Volga.
Education
An Oil Industry Community College (Neftyanoy Technicum) trains skilled
workers and technicians for the petrochemical industry.
offers evening classes in Kstovo for the students
studying in its Distance Education chemical engineering program.
Nizhny Novgorod Military Engineering College (), founded in 1801 in Saint Petersburg
and moved in 1960 to Kaliningrad, received its current name in 1995, when
it was transferred to Kstovo.
Culture, recreation and sportsKstovo's most famous sporting venue is The World Academy of Sambo, which has hosted many national and international Sambo wrestling competitions. Its origins go back to 1964, when the first local Sambo club was formed. In October 1976, a Sambo School building was opened on the western edge of the city; in 1995, in time for the Sambo World Cup, a new, taller building was constructed next to it, the facility becoming known as the "World Academy of Sambo".
The town also has a puppet theater, a palace of culture, a public library, and an active chess club. The movie theater, popular with the citizens during the Soviet era, closed down after
the advent of VCRs and DVDs, and part of its premises are now used by en electronics
store.
The spiritual needs of the Christians of the town are served by three Orthodox churches in the
city and immediately adjacent villages:
the Church of Our Lady of Kazan in the Old Kstovo (whose building during the Communist era was used
for a printshop); another Church of Our Lady of Kazan in Velikiy Vrag, which
was built in 1792 and is now protected as a heritage site, owned by the federal
government;
and the Church of St.Vladimir in Vishenki.
External links
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