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Akhtubinsk is a city in the Astrakhan region of Russia, the
administrative center of the Akhtubinsk region. It was formed in
1959 by uniting the village (until 1918 - the settlement)
Vladimirovka, the villages of Petropavlovka and Akhtuba, as well as
an aviation military town.
The city is located in the
northern part of the region on the left banks of the Volga branches:
Akhtuba, Vladimirovka and Kalmynka, 292 km north of Astrakhan.
The city-forming institution is the State Flight Test Center.
V.P. Chkalov. The administration of the urban settlement and the
GLITs are taking active steps to assign the city the status of a
science city.
There are about 15 hotels and small hotels in the city. The
picturesque nature of the Lower Volga region, fishing and hot summer
days attract tourists to Akhtubinsk. August is the season of melons and
watermelons. From the first of September, the season for catching
crayfish begins, they are sold in the markets of the city.
Vacationers form tent camps in the forests along the rivers or rent
houses on the island of Petrikov.
In 2009, after repairs, the work of the regional House of Culture was
resumed, in which the artists made a classic interior design.
Since April 2006, the "Akhtuba City Cultural and Educational Center" has
been operating. Its purpose is to address issues of organization,
maintenance and development of cultural institutions in the city of
Akhtubinsk. Its structural subdivisions are: city house of culture of
rivermen, cultural and leisure center, park of culture and recreation;
library DK Rechnikov, city libraries No. 1-4, city children's library,
city youth library.
Museum of History and Local Lore
Art
salon, concert and exhibition hall "Muse".
One of the cultural
centers of the city is the FGKU "89 House of Officers (garrison)" of the
Russian Ministry of Defense. Concerts, performances, conferences are
held in the concert hall of the Garrison House of Officers. There is a
library at the House of Officers.
The city has one
municipal cinema "Victory", located on Volgogradskaya street. The cinema
has one auditorium with 400 seats. In 2015, a 3D system for showing
films in 3D was installed.
The Oktyabr cinema, which belonged to
the House of Officers of the Russian Ministry of Defense, was
transferred to the ownership of the city of Akhtubinsk in 2019.
Currently not active. A reconstruction plan has been developed.
The city has its own literary life. Write and publish such authors as Vasily Udalets (b. 1937), Lyudmila Udalets, Vladimir Rodionov (b. 1927), Ivan Khachaturov (b. 1954).
Children's Art
School No. 4 named after. P. I. Kotova. Annual exhibitions of children's
works are held: "Christmas Holidays", "Colors of Summer", "Winter
Mosaic" are held thanks to them.
One of the great artists of the
USSR, Pyotr Ivanovich Kotov, spent his childhood in Akhtubinsk. In 1991,
a memorial plaque was opened on the house where he was born and grew up.
Irina Petrovna, the artist's daughter, donated paintings, sketches and
some of her father's art supplies to the school.
There are many
talented artists in Akhtubinsk, such as Vladimir Rodionov, Igor Pukhart
and others.
The youth association of artists was formed in 1999
and consisted of sixteen members. Their works were presented at
exhibitions in Akhtubinsk, Volgograd and Astrakhan.
Several old buildings have been preserved in
Vladimirovka. The most interesting examples of the architecture of that
era are merchant houses and shops, administrative buildings and
buildings of educational institutions.
For example, houses built
by the fisherman Pyotr Vasilyevich Lopatin, one of the richest people in
Vladimirovka. Being the son of a merchant, he was in the peasant class
and often entered the position of the poor. And therefore, after the
October Revolution, when nationalization began, the new people's
government left Lopatin at his former fishing establishment as a
director. Later, various state institutions were located in his
residential building, and the store was rebuilt into a public bath.
A large family of merchants Yevtushenko lived in Vladimirovka. The
house has been preserved to this day. One of them, built in 1907,
currently houses the Regional Museum of Local History.
Brick
building on the street. Lenin, 90, built before 1900, belonged to the
clerk Starikov. Until 1927, a bakery was located on the first floor, and
rooms were rented on the second. In 1929, Starikov's house was
confiscated. The headquarters for dispossession was located here. Since
the 1930s, it was occupied by the police, then by the polyclinic, the
district education department, the irrigation and water systems
department, a household appliances repair shop, and so on.
In the center of the city there is a park of
culture and recreation named after V.P. Chkalov. The park has sculptural
monuments to V.P. Chkalov (opened in 2010), a monument to Bulat
Okudzhava (opened in 2018).
From the north, the House of
Officers, Lenin Square and the square with the Star of Victory fountain
adjoin it.
Central Park is located in the northern part of the
city between Pushkin and Chkalov streets.
The square on
Bakhchivandzhi Street is named in honor of the 100th anniversary of the
formation of the 929th State Flight Test Center named after V.P.
Chkalov.
Among the most famous monuments
of Akhtubinsk are:
The memorial complex "Wing of Icarus" on the bank
of the Akhtuba River, dedicated to the dead test pilots. Near the
complex is a memorial aircraft Su-22, a Soviet fighter-bomber developed
in the first half of the 1960s. Installed at the direction of the head
of the 1st Directorate of the Civil Aviation Research Institute of the
Air Force, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel V.V. Migunov in 1983.
Memorial complex with eternal flame on Victory Square. In the same
place, in 1967, a monument was erected to a member of the group of
partisan saboteurs "Maxim 66" Valya Zaikina (1923-1942), who was born in
Vladimirovka.
Multi-figured monument "We won!" on Lenin Square.
Monument to V. I. Lenin on Lenin Square.
Monument dedicated to the
902 Berlin Rifle Order of Kutuzov Regiment.
Temple in
the name of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God.
Church of St.
Michael the Archangel.
The Ragged Parade is an annual unofficial mass event held at the end
of May before the last call of the city's school graduates. First held
in 1989. Some of the graduating students of secondary school No. 1,
dressed according to the name of the parade, walked through the streets
of the city. The result of the first parade was the hit of the founders
of this tradition in the police station for violating public order.
This is a kind of farewell ceremony for childhood, when graduates
dress up in various torn clothes or carnival costumes, gather on Lenin
Square, and then walk around the city or go to the river.
Cellular operators: Beeline, Megafon, MTS, YOTA. Mobile communication
standards: GSM, GPRS, EDGE, 3G (HSDPA), 4G (LTE)
The Akhtubinsky
Post Office of the Federal Post Office for the Astrakhan Region is a
branch of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Post. There is
the Akhtuba telecommunication center, a division of OJSC Rostelecom.
Sloboda Vladimirovka, according to the
legend of local residents, which was recorded in the late 1830s, was
founded around 1768. The site chosen for the settlement was
originally covered with dense grass and was home to many saigas. In
the meadow (floodplain) at that time there was a forest of frequent
and impassable, in which wild boars were found in significant
numbers.
The first inhabitants arrived at this wild place in
the amount of about 300 souls, having moved from the village of
Kamenny (Kamenny Yar) of the Chernoyarsk district of the Astrakhan
province, founded in 1750 by the Chuvash and Mordovians. The new
settlement got its name from the nearby Vladimirovka River, which,
in turn, was named after a certain settler Vladimir, who lived by
the river as a farm for a long time even before the settlement was
founded.
Not earlier than 1813, at least 500 souls of state
peasants from the Kharkov province were resettled to Vladimirovka by
government decree.
In the "Historical note on the Astrakhan
diocese for 300 years of its existence (1702-1902)", published in
1903, it is mentioned that already in 1795 there was a church in the
name of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. Initially, it was
wooden, but in the first quarter of the 19th century, a brick church
was erected instead.
Residents of Vladimirovka were engaged
in the cultivation of bread, cattle breeding and transportation of
salt from Lake Elton, and then from Lake Baskunchak. During the
spring flood, river vessels approached the Mamai salt pier, named
after the remnants of an earthen protective structure near the
Akhtuba River near the Akhtuba River, loaded with salt and went
through the channels to the Volga. Further, the vessels moved down
the Volga to Astrakhan, to the fishing industry, or up to Tsaritsyn,
Saratov and beyond.
By the end of the 20th century, there
were 5 primary schools (schools) of the Ministry of Public Education
in the settlement, including a two-year and a Russian-Kazakh one,
which trained 180 children of both sexes, as well as 2 parish
schools and a school-church.
The history of the village of
Petropavlovka originates from the farm, near which in 1867, on the
left bank of the Volga, in the backwater, the Vladimirovskaya salt
pier of the Vladimirovka settlement was laid. With the development
of the salt pier, the settlement grew, which received the name
Shumilovka from the noise of the salt mills working at the pier. In
1910, a church in the name of the Apostles Peter and Paul was built
in the village, which is where its name comes from.
In the
same 1910 in Petropavlovka the Okean joint-stock company organized a
ship repair station, which eventually grew into a shipyard (in March
1966 the shipyard was renamed from Vladimirovsky to Akhtubinsky).
In 1883, a state-owned railway was put into operation,
connecting Lake Baskunchak with the salt piers of Vladimirovskaya
and Mamayskaya. The Akhtuba railway station with a depot for
preventive maintenance of steam locomotives and carriages was put
into operation, a village was founded at the station. In 1912, the
construction of a capital railway bridge across the Akhtuba River
was completed, which made it possible to deliver salt to the
Vladimirovskaya pier at any time of the year, regardless of the
water level in the Akhtuba River. At the same time, there was no
need to maintain the Mamayskaya pier.
In 1920-1930, in
connection with the development of new branches of agriculture in
the regional center, processing branches of industry were
developing: a cannery, a creamery, a meat processing plant. A
network of clubs, schools, workshops has been built.
Vladimirovka received an impulse for development after it was placed
in the adjacent territory of the V.P. Chkalov (later GLITs), a large
aviation test complex. From the 1950s to the early 1970s were built:
Residential town;
The officers' house on Lenin Square and the
city park;
Memorial complex "Wing of Icarus", dedicated to the
pilots who died during testing of aircraft;
Cinema "October";
Volga Stadium;
Military hospital.
The regional center was
intensively developed in 1959 due to the assignment of the city
status and the name "Akhtubinsk". The city united the village of
Vladimirovka, a military town, the villages of Petropavlovka and
Akhtuba.
In subsequent years, there was a further development
of the ship repair and construction plant and railway transport, an
active construction of the housing stock, social welfare and medical
institutions was launched.
The cholera outbreak that occurred
in 1970 in the Astrakhan and Volgograd regions gave rise to the
construction of a complex of buildings for the Central District
Hospital, the District Sanitary and Epidemiological Station and the
Akhtuba group water supply system.
Akhtubinsk was repeatedly
visited by the leaders of the state. For example, on September 2,
1958, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, First Secretary of the CPSU
Central Committee and Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers,
arrived at the Akhtubinsk training ground. He was shown the defeat
in the air of an Il-28 target aircraft by RS-2-U missiles from a
MiG-19 PM aircraft (test pilot M.I.Bobrovitsky).
In May 1971, a large government delegation visited the city:
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny, Alexei
Nikolaevich Kosygin. The guests were shown an imitation of an air
battle between MiG-23S and MiG-21 aircraft.
From the
beginning of the 1990s, entrepreneurship began to develop in the
city.
On May 10, 1996, the first President of the Russian
Federation, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, visited Akhtubinsk as part
of his election tour. During the visit, he presented the Gold Star
medals of the Hero of the Russian Federation to test pilots:
- Honored Test Pilot of the USSR (1988), Major General of Aviation
Viktor Martynovich Chirkin (since 2008, "Honorary Citizen of the
city of Akhtubinsk");
- Colonels Alexander Mikhailovich
Raevsky (Honored Test Pilot of the Russian Federation, 2002) and
Nikolai Fedorovich Diorditsa (Honored Test Pilot of the Russian
Federation).
Akhtubinsk is home to the world's first heavy
jeep. In 1995, the magazine "Science and Technology" published an
article by Stanislav Syomin (July 14, 1935 - February 1, 2016) "I
love jeeps" about his heavy SUV. Then the author of his invention
did not write that he had built it back in the late 60s. XX century.
Natives of Akhtuba were among the first thirteen families who
founded the village of Nikolskoye, now the city of Ussuriysk in the
Primorsky Territory.
The city of Akhtubinsk is located in the time zone, designated by the international standard as Samara Time Zone (STZ). The offset relative to UTC is +4:00, relative to Moscow time is +1 hour. Time in Akhtubinsk corresponds to the geographic standard time.
The city of Akhtubinsk is part of the Akhtubinsky district, located in the semi-desert zone of the northeastern part of the Astrakhan region and stretching along the left bank of the Volga River. Its territory is 781 thousand hectares. Akhtubinsk is the regional center of the Akhtubinsky district and is 292 km away from Astrakhan. Communication with the regional center is carried out by road, water, rail and air transport. The district borders in the north with the Volgograd region, in the east with Kazakhstan, in the west with Chernoyarsky, in the southwest with Enotaevsky and in the south with Kharabalinsky districts. The territory is a monotonous, flat plain with saucer-shaped depressions. Deep but short ravines extend in the valleys of the Volga and Akhtuba rivers. The floodplain as a whole is characterized by a coarse-crested relief, with oxbow lakes.
The arid climate of the city is formed under the influence of
atmospheric circulation processes in the southern zone of temperate
latitudes. The territory is also accessible to the removal of arctic,
tropical (from the Mediterranean and Iran), as well as marine (from the
Atlantic) and continental (from Kazakhstan) air masses. The dominant
position (60-70% in summer and 80% in winter) is occupied by continental
air masses of temperate latitudes. In general, the climate is the most
continental and arid throughout the European territory of Russia. The
climate of this region is characterized by significant annual and daily
fluctuations in air temperature and a relatively small amount of
precipitation. The abundance of light and heat is also characteristic.
The average annual air temperature is +13.1 °C.
The coldest
month is January with an average daily air temperature of −6.8 °C.
The average monthly temperature in July, the warmest month of the
year, is +25.3 °C.
Extreme air temperatures are observed in
January and July and are respectively −36 °C and +45 °C.
The last
spring frosts are observed in the third decade of April, and the first -
in early October. Thus, the duration of the frost-free period is five
and a half months. The growing season begins with the transition of the
average daily air temperature above 10 °C and has an average duration of
180 days.
Relative humidity in the annual course has a maximum in
January (84%), and a minimum in July (58%). During the year, on average,
there are 74 days when, at least in one of the periods of observation,
the relative humidity of the air is less than 30%, and in July from 10
to 12 days with dry winds. Under the influence of moisture, there is a
significant decrease in meteorological conditions, and the probability
of a dry wind effect is sharply reduced. In summer, it is especially hot
in the steppe, you should be extremely careful, otherwise sunstroke is
possible. Between 2004 and 2017 there were over 180 cases, over 30
deaths!
Akhtubinsk has a developed transport infrastructure, being the center
of railways and highways. The sphere of transport in the city of
Akhtubinsk is represented mainly by branches of nonresident enterprises.
Railway
The city has Vladimirovka (passenger) and Akhtuba
(freight) railway stations on the Volgograd-Upper Baskunchak branch of
the Astrakhan region of the Volga railway. In Petropavlovka there is a
dead-end railway station Vladimirovskaya pier.
The nearest major
junction stations are Volgograd and Upper Baskunchak.
Bus
In
1961, the Akhtuba mixed motor transport enterprise was formed, Anatoly
Sergeevich Ignatov was appointed its head. The company had more than a
hundred trucks and about forty buses. Currently, the municipal
enterprise "Akhtubinsky ATP" serves 10 urban routes, 9 suburban and 5
intercity, including 2 interregional. However, on June 16, 2015, it
ceased operations due to the introduction of bankruptcy proceedings.
Currently, bus routes are served by various individual entrepreneurs
using PAZ-3205 buses.
The bus station is located on the station
square, next to the Vladimirovka railway station. Inter-regional and
inter-district transportation is carried out by a branch of the
Transagency system. About 10 buses depart daily from the bus station in
the direction of Volgograd (journey time is 3.5 hours). In the opposite
direction, they go the same number every hour. There are also direct
buses from Voronezh, Astrakhan, Kazan and other cities.
The city
has a developed network of private taxis. A number of companies also
offer taxi services. The oldest company "Leader" has been operating
since the early 1990s. There are also companies "Alta", "Real", "Bravo",
"Protection", "Rus" and others.
Ports
Cargo river port on the
Akhtuba river. Until recently, there was a river port - a branch of the
Volga Shipping Company. His fixed assets were bought by an individual
entrepreneur and registered a new company, Akhtuba Shipping Company LLC.