Balashikha, Russia

 

Balashikha is the largest city in the Moscow region. Balashikha is the largest city in the Moscow region. Founded in 1830. Since 2015, the Balashikha urban district also includes the city of Zheleznodorozhny. Former ancient center of the textile industry (since the founding of the city). Currently there is no textile industry in the city.

 

Sights

1  Pekhra-Yakovlevskoe estate. The estate of the princes Golitsyn, located on the left bank of Pekhorka. During the Soviet years, various higher educational institutions were located on the territory of the estate. Pehra-Yakovlevskoye is a monument of federal significance and is protected by the state.
2  Gorenki Estate. Another ancient estate is located on the southern side of the Entuziastov Highway, on the left bank of the Gorenki River, with a cascade of seven ponds (three preserved) with islands and bridges formed during the construction of the estate. In the second half of the 18th - early 19th centuries, the estate belonged to the family of Counts Razumovsky. Under Alexei Kirillovich Razumovsky, the largest botanical garden in Russia was established in Gorenki. Currently, the Moscow regional sanatorium for extrapulmonary forms of tuberculosis “Red Rose” is located in the estate.
3  Cotton spinning factory.
4  Monument to the janitor.

 

Things to do

1  Local History Museum, Lenin Avenue, 53. ✉ ☎ +7 (495) 529-02-13. Mon-Fri from 10:00 to 18:00, Sat-Sun from 10:00 to 17:00.
2  Cinema “Luxor”   , Lenin Avenue, 25.
3  Cinema “Svetofor”  , Shosse Entuziastov, 1 k.9. ☎ +7 (498) 662-43-97, +7 (498) 662-43-96.
4  Air Defense Museum, Zarya microdistrict, Lenin Street, 6. ✉ ☎ +7 (498) 665-13-73, +7 (498) 665-41-38. Wed-Sun 10:00 - 17:00. Adults - 100 rubles per person. Students, schoolchildren, pensioners - 70 rubles per person. Family excursions - from 500 rubles. Photography - 300 rubles. The Military History Museum of Russia, the only museum of the history of the Air Defense Forces in Europe. Founded in January 1978.
5  Sports and ski complex “Lisya Gora”  , Razinskoe highway, 69. ☎ +7 (495) 521-81-18, +7-985-210-09-06. Wed-Sun 10:00 - 17:00.
6  Balashikha Arena, Parkovaya street, 2. ☎ +7 (498) 662-42-42. 11:00 – 20:30

 

How to get there

By train
From the Kursky railway station (stations Kurskaya and Chkalovskaya) in Moscow, trains depart to the Balashikha station. More often, electric trains run to Balashikha from the Nizhegorodskaya metro station.

1  Balashikha station  Wikidata element, Sovetskaya street, 27a. Exit to Sovetskaya and Zelenaya streets (5, 8, 10, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 28, 32, 338, 385, 396). Travel time from Kursky Station with all stops is 45 minutes. The final station of electric trains heading to Balashikha. Equipped with turnstiles. The building has a commuter ticket office and a toilet.
2  Platform “Gorenki”, Exit to Obezdnoye Highway. Intermediate stop on the Reutovo - Balashikha line. There is no ticket office; tickets can be purchased en route from ticket controllers. Travel time from Kursky station with all stops is 35 minutes. Aug 2015 edit
Also within the city there are stops on the main route of the Gorky Railway, which can be reached from the above only by changing at the Reutovo station:

3  Platform “Nikolskoye”, Exit to 1st Zheleznodorozhnaya street and Vishnyakovskoye highway. (Auth. 22). Located in the Nikolo-Arkhangelsky microdistrict. All electric trains pass through, except those heading to the Balashikha station, but some continue without stopping. Travel time from Kursky Station with all stops is 24 minutes.
4  Platform “Saltykovskaya”, Exit to Zheleznodorozhnaya, Pionerskaya and Pushkinskaya streets, Ilyich highway and Razinskoye highway. (Auth. 5). Located in the Saltykovsky microdistrict. All electric trains pass through, except those heading to the Balashikha station, but some continue without stopping. Travel time from Kursky station with all stops is 27 minutes.
5  Platform “Black”, Exit to the Eastern Highway. (Auth. 20). Located in the vicinity of the village of Chernoye, part of Balashikha. All electric trains pass through, except those heading to the stations “Balashikha” and “Zheleznodorozhnaya”, but some continue without stopping. Travel time from Kursky station with all stops is 46 minutes.
6  Platform “Zarya” (30 km), Exit to Lastochkin Proezd and Nosovikhinskoye Highway. (Auth. 56). Located in the Zarya microdistrict. All electric trains pass through, except those heading to the stations “Balashikha” and “Zheleznodorozhnaya”, but some continue without stopping. Travel time from Kursky station with all stops is 48 minutes.

By car
The center of Balashikha is located 6 kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road. Gorkovskoe highway M7, Shchelkovskoe highway A103 and Nosovikhinskoe highway pass through the city.

By bus
From Moscow
From 3 Partizanskaya:
322 Metro “Partizanskaya” - Noginsk (bus and minibus)
336 metro station "Partizanskaya" - A/s "Yuzhnaya" (bus and minibus)
385 metro station "Partizanskaya" - Mkr. Balashikha-2 (bus and minibus)
574 metro station "Partizanskaya" - Mkr. Zarya (minibus)

From 3 Pervomayskaya:
1013 metro station "Pervomaiskaya" - Mkr. Yantarny (bus)

From 7 Shchelkovskaya:
102 metro station "Shchelkovskaya" - Mkr. Aviators (minibus taxi)
447 metro station "Shchelkovskaya" - Mkr. Balashikha-2 (bus)
320 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Chernogolovka (bus and minibus)
321 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Pyatkovo (bus)
335 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Fryanovo (bus)
349 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Shchelkovo (bus and minibus)
360 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Dubrovo (bus)
361 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Fryazino (bus and minibus)
362 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Monino (bus)
371 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Sverdlovsky (bus and minibus)
378 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Aniskino (bus and minibus)
380 Metro "Shchelkovskaya" - Star City (bus)
395 metro station "Shchelkovskaya" - Mkr. Balashikha-2 (bus and minibus)
396 metro station "Shchelkovskaya" - A/s "Yuzhnaya" (bus and minibus)
429 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Mizinovo (bus)
485 Metro “Shchelkovskaya” - Shchelkovo (Zarechny microdistrict) (bus and minibus)
889 metro station “Shchelkovskaya” - St. Green (bus and minibus)
1080 metro station "Shchelkovskaya" - Mkr. Alekseevskaya Roshcha (minibus taxi)
3016 metro station "Shchelkovskaya" - Mkr. Yantarny (minibus taxi)

 

Transport around the city

There are 16 city bus and minibus routes in Balashikha. Suburban routes connect Balashikha with the nearest metro stations and with the cities of Zheleznodorozhny and Reutov. Transit suburban routes run from Moscow to settlements in neighboring areas of the Moscow region.

 

Eat

KFC, Tretyaka street, 8 (Aviator microdistrict). ☎ +7 (495) 981-27-94 (ext. 6080) +7 (495) 981-27-94 (ext. 9080). 09:00 – 22:00. There are always few people.

 

Hotels

Cheap
1  Hotel complex, Karbysheva street, 2B. ☎ +7 (495) 521‒29‒52. From 1500 ₽.
2  Sport, Razina street, 2. ✉ ☎ +7 (495) 524-10-99. From 1400 ₽.

Average cost
3  East Gate Hotel, Lenin Avenue, 25. ✉ ☎ +7 (495) 926-04-56. From 4300 ₽.
4  Hotel on Julius Fucik, Julius Fucik Street, 1a. ☎ +7 (495) 521‒90‒76. From 4000 ₽.
5  Artiland, Novskoe highway, 10. ✉ ☎ +7 (495) 276‒21‒21. From 4500 ₽.

Expensive
Artiland   , 143903, Moscow region, Balashikha, Novskoe highway 10 (Public transport to the “Shkola” stop: From the Perovo metro station. Exit the metro in both directions, to the left - minibus - No. 886, to the right - minibus No. 587 and to the stop " School".). ✉ around the clock. Country Club.

 

Connection

mobile connection
The city has cellular networks of the “big three” GSM operators: MTS, Beeline and Megafon (also Yota). An alternative technology is CDMA2000 (NB! implemented in the 450 MHz band), provided by the SkyLink operator.

 

History

First settlements

The oldest settlements in the vicinity of present-day Balashikha existed from the 7th century BC. This is indicated by burial grounds and places of sacrifice along the banks of the Gorenka and Pekhorka rivers. The territory now occupied by Balashikha was inhabited by Slavic tribes in the 10th century, as evidenced by the Balashikha mounds and settlement. On the territory of the region there are more than 350 burial mounds of the Krivichi and Vyatichi people, the largest of which are Akatovsky, Dyatlovsky and Miletsky.

A kilometer from Akatovo, south of the Pehra-Yakovlevskoye estate, on the left bank of Pekhorka, in the Lisya Gora tract, there is a settlement of the 12th-14th centuries, which, according to archaeologists, was one of the control centers of the Moscow principality at the earliest stage of its development. On the right bank of the Pekhorka, at the confluence of the Gorenka River, there is a once rich village, presumably the ancestral settlement of the Akatov boyars, which existed here in the 14th-18th centuries.

The villages of Pehra-Pokrovskoye and Pehra-Yakovlevskoye were named after the river. The Pokhryane parish was first mentioned in the spiritual charter of the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan Danilovich Kalita in 1336. In 1380-1381, the northeastern part of the volost was exchanged by Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy for the Kremlin Miracle Monastery.

Settlements along the Stromynsky tract (now Shchelkovskoe highway) belonged to Moscow princes and tsars. Scribe books from 1573-1574 mention the monastic village of Osteevo on the left bank of the Pekhorka, below the confluence of the Malashka, with land and a mill. By the end of the 17th century, the village ceased to exist. Now this place is Zarechnaya Street.

 

History from the 17th to the 19th centuries

The first mention of Balashikha (in those days - “Ploshikha mill”) dates back to the 16th century. Balashikha was formed from the former villages of Ploshikha (Bloshino), Leonovo, Nikolaevka, Zelenaya Roshcha, Nikolsko-Trubetskoye, Gushchinka (Sausanovo) and estates, among which the most famous are Gorenki and Pehra-Yakovlevskoye.

Under the first Romanovs, villages desolate during the Time of Troubles received new life. At the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, the Izmailovskaya volost was formed here. Under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1667, the village of Nikolsko-Trubetskoye was built between the Pekhorka and Malashka rivers. The villages of Lukino, Abramtsevo, the village of Shchitnikovo and the village of Golyanovo are being restored. To the north and south of the tract, rich forest and hunting grounds are being developed, and mills are being installed on the rivers. The stone Alekseevsky Palace was built on the lands of the village of Lukino. By the beginning of the 19th century, it had fallen into disrepair and was dismantled, and bricks and stone were used to build the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which still exists today, in the neighboring village of Pehra-Pokrovskoye.

The village of Pehra-Pokrovskoye belonged to the Moscow Epiphany Monastery, and after the secularization of church lands under Catherine II it was transferred to the treasury, to the College of Economy. In 1800, there was a silk factory in the village of Moscow merchants Gerasim and Nikita Petrov. Pekhora scarves with gold and silver embroidery were sold at fairs for 6-7 rubles, which was the annual income of a peasant at that time.

Down the Pekhorka River on the left bank, the Gushchinka mill has been known since 1760. A small village arose around it, which received its name both from the mill and from the owner (merchant Susanna Beer) - Susanovo-Gushchinka.

The village of Pehra-Yakovlevskoye has been known since the 16th century. For almost 250 years, the village belonged to the princely family of Golitsyn, starting in 1591, when the village was acquired by Prince Andrei Golitsyn. In 1764-1773, Lieutenant General Pyotr Golitsyn began laying out the garden and park, and his son Mikhail began construction of the palace-estate in 1782. The creation of the Pehra-Yakovlevsky estate complex is associated with the names of architects Karl Blank and Adam Menelas. The complex includes the Church of the Savior of the Image Not Made by Hands (in our time, re-consecrated in the name of the Transfiguration of the Lord). For construction needs, a brick factory was built on the estate, and a stud farm operated. The Golitsyns also owned the neighboring village of Leonovo.

From 1576-1578, the village of Chizhevo on the Gorenka River was mentioned in scribe books. In 1640, on the wasteland on the left bank of the river, boyar Nikifor Pleshcheev-Chermny founded the village of Gorenki. Prince Yuri Khilkov built a master's courtyard here in 1693 - the dowry of his daughter Praskovya, who was married to Prince Alexei Dolgorukov in 1707.

The new owner in 1724 annexed Chizhevo and the right-bank Gorenki to this estate and began building the first palace. In 1747, the estate was sold to the Empress's favorite, Count Alexei Razumovsky. After his death, Gorenki was owned by his nephew Alexey. Under him, the palace was rebuilt according to Menelas's design, a rich park with a cascade of ponds and greenhouses, and a botanical garden were laid out (its collections are now at Moscow University). The plant collection exceeded 7,000 species.

 

Development of Balashikha from 1830 to 1917

The founding date of Balashikha is considered to be 1830, when Prince Trubetskoy, together with the merchant Pavel Moloshnikov, built a small wooden factory for the production of cloth on the site of a dam and a mill. In 1846, merchant Pavel Moloshnikov rebuilt it for the production of cotton fabrics. On the site of the former village of Bloshino, a new five-story building was soon built, where the main production was transferred in 1850. At that time, 510 workers worked on 128 machines with 10 thousand spindles. The factory produced 5,130 poods of yarn per year for 129 thousand 467 silver rubles.

In the same 1850, a 50-horsepower air-cooled Pratt steam engine was ordered from England. In the same year, master Michael Lunn, who headed the factory for 45 years, came to Balashikha to install new equipment.

In 1873, merchants and manufacturers Ivan Karzinkin, Pavel Shelaputin, Mikhail Shcheglov, together with Lunn, formed the Balashinskaya Manufactory Partnership. In 1875, there were almost 22 thousand spindles in production, and the fixed capital of the Partnership amounted to 600 thousand rubles. In 1879, there were 905 workers at the manufactory, and the amount of annual production exceeded 1 million rubles, and after 11 years, in 1890, 2,687 workers worked at the factory, and the amount of annual production increased almost 3 times. The beginning of the 20th century was marked by even greater economic growth for the manufacture. In 1903, the number of workers on it exceeded 3 thousand people, and the amount of annual production approached 5 million rubles. A factory settlement arose around the enterprise, which received its finished form by 1907-1910.

By 1914, the factory was a complex economic mechanism - industrial buildings and brick workers' barracks, a school, a hospital, a workers' school, and an almshouse. In 1912, a railway line with numerous access roads was built from Reutov to the factory. At the Balashikha station there was a postal and telegraph office - the first communication center of the future city. Peat was mined for the factory in the vicinity of Lake Biserov, and a power transmission line was laid from Bogorodsk.

In 1821, merchant Ivan Chetverikov founded a wool weaving (cloth) factory in the Green Grove tract (former Blashinsky ravine). The factory was initially very modest. In 1843, only 92 people worked here, 16 machines operated in the workshops, and the annual volume of production (harsh cloth) was estimated at 60 thousand rubles. In 1903, 355 people worked at the factory, which then belonged to the Trading House of I. F. Petrov and I. V. Shcheglov. The amount of annual production exceeded 300 thousand rubles.

In 1907, a strong fire broke out at the factory, which destroyed the main stone building. In 1908, on the site of the burned building, a new production building was built along with a water tower. The author of the project was the famous Russian architect Ivan Ivanovich Pozdeev, who since 1903 was the architect of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

At the beginning of the 20th century, on the site of the Gushchinki mill, entrepreneur Alexander Pimenov founded a small artificial sheepskin factory. In terms of size and production volume, it could not compete with its neighbors, but the factory village of Susanovo-Gushchinka also became the center of attraction for the future city.

During the construction of the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod railway in 1863, at the request of Prince Pyotr Dmitrievich Saltykov, a stop was built, called Saltykovka.

Houses and dachas began to be built on both sides of the railway. On the right, southern side, mostly Muscovites-dacha residents settled, and the village, by analogy with the Moscow ones, was named Novo-Sokolniki. On the other side of the road, on the northern side, small employees and railway workers began to settle. The village was named Saltykovka. Half a century later, both villages were united under the common name Saltykovka.

In 1893, the estate and adjacent lands came into the possession of the landowner N.N. Kovalev. He cut clearings in the forest, divided the land into plots and began selling them for the construction of dachas.

Since the 80s of the 19th century, Saltykovka has become an attractive place for many representatives of the creative intelligentsia. Famous painters and sculptors, actors and writers, scientists and educators lived here. A remarkable master of Russian landscape, world-famous artist Isaac Ilyich Levitan also lived here at one time.

 

Soviet period

1917-1941

In July 1917, a factory committee was formed at the Balashin manufactory, which played the role of the primary cell of self-government. Edwin Lunn, who managed the manufactory before the revolution, emigrated to Great Britain; another manager, Login Karzinkin, was arrested. Not a single labor conflict was registered at the enterprises of the volost in 1917-1918. In 1920, in terms of the number of operating enterprises, the Razinsky district, with a population of more than 60,000 people, ranked second in the Moscow district.

In 1921, the Balashinskaya manufactory was subordinated to the Cotton Department of Mostekstil. By this time, the number of workers had decreased from 2814 to 1495 people. In the mid-1920s, the Zelenovskaya cloth factory and the Pimenovskaya factory became part of the Mossherstsukno trust. For the convenience of managing factory villages, in the summer of 1921, all factory committees were united into the Balashikha City Council of Workers' Deputies. Nikolai Zorin became the first Chairman of the Council. Two orphanages for children from the Volga region were opened in Balashikha, the improvement of workers' barracks began, and trade with the surrounding villages was established. On the basis of the children's colony named after. Stepan Razin in Gorenki in 1925 opened the anti-tuberculosis sanatorium “Red Rose”, named after the German communist Rosa Luxemburg. The City Council existed until the winter of 1922, when, under a staff reduction program, it was merged with the Razinsky District Council (since November 1924 - the volost Council of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies).

In 1925, south of the village of Nikolskoye-Trubetskoye, the “Union” settlement was built for workers of the Balashikha and Zelenovskaya factories. By this time they were called, respectively, factory No. 1 named after. A. I. Rykov and factory No. 5 named after G. V. Chicherin. On May 28, 1928, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution on the formation of factories from factory villages. Rykov and them. Chicherin of the unified workers' village of Balashikha. After the administrative reform of 1929 and the formation of the Moscow region, the working village of Balashikha became part of the newly formed Reutovsky district. Since the Reutov factory ranked first in the Razin volost in terms of the number of workers, the center of the district was moved there. However, in terms of the number of inhabitants, Balashikha was almost twice as large as Reutov.

On February 22, 1932, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decided to begin the construction of aviation and military industry plants No. 120 and No. 121 on the territory north of the Nizhny Novgorod highway between the Gorenki River and the village of Nikolaevka. By the spring of 1937, plant No. 120 was launched. From it, under the name “Aviaprom plant No. 219,” foundry and mechanical production was separated. Plants No. 120 and 219 produced retractable landing gear for aircraft. To test equipment and train flight personnel, an airfield and an aircraft repair plant were built near the village of Chernoye. In 1936, next to the buildings of the two factories, a third was built - the Aviaprom repair and mechanical plant No. 49. The first five-story brick houses were built along the Gorkovsky highway in 1935.

To the east of Leonovo and Gushchinka, north of the Gorkovskoye Highway, in 1935 the construction of the Novomoskovsk Autogenous Plant and the Avtogenstroy factory village began. In 1937, the village had already been created, but the construction of the plant was delayed until May 1940 due to an outdated design. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, only the first three oxygen production plants were ready.

Other sectors of the economy also developed. In 1935, the Balashikha Cotton Spinning Factory produced 5,535 tons of yarn, and Cloth Factory No. 5 produced 671 tons of cloth. The textile industry employed more than 5,500 workers. On May 6, 1930, the All-Union Fur Institute (now the Russian State Agrarian Correspondence University) opened on the territory of the Pehra-Yakovlevskoye estate. The special purpose internal troops division named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky, created on the basis of the VOKhR troops, was transferred closer to Moscow. On the current territory of the city there were collective farms named after I.V. Stalin (Gorenki, Nikolaevka), named after M.I. Kalinin (Leonovo, Pehra-Yakovlevskoye), named after K.E. Voroshilov (Lukino, Pehra-Pokrovskoye, Nikolsko-Trubetskoye). Their teams became laureates of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow in 1939-1940.

On September 19, 1939, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decided to “transform the workers’ village of Balashikha into a city, retaining its former name.” In the city, which included Gorenki, Pervomaisky village, Grabari, Nikolaevka, Avtogenstroy, there were more than 40,000 inhabitants. On May 19, 1941, the center of the district was moved to Balashikha, and the district began to be called Balashikha.

 

The Great Patriotic War

The Great Patriotic War significantly influenced the further development of the city. The Balashikha region gave the army more than 20 thousand soldiers and officers. More than 3,400 Balashikha residents were killed in battle or died from wounds, about 4,200 were missing. In July 1941, a battalion of people's militia was formed in the area under the command of Major Nikolai Kazakov: On July 31, the 3rd battalion of the 5th rifle regiment of the 2nd Moscow division of the people's militia took the first battle in the Vyazemsky direction. Natives of Balashikha made up the 7th and 8th companies of the regiment. The division was almost completely destroyed in the Vyazemsky cauldron in October 1941.

Formed in Balashikha, the 25th fighter battalion (commander Sergei Sazonov) in the winter of 1941 became part of the combat units of the Red Army. More than 8 thousand Balashikha residents worked on the construction of Moscow’s defensive belts. Balashikha residents and collective farmers of neighboring villages and hamlets raised money to build tanks for the 91st tank brigade of the 29th tank corps and the 59th heavy tank regiment of the 60th army, 15 Yak-3 fighters of the Moscow air squadron. In 1942, the Balashikha region took patronage over the 133rd and 208th fighter air regiments, as well as over the headquarters of the 39th Army, the commander of which was Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General N.E. Berzarin, and then Colonel General I.I. .Ludnikov, whose families were in Balashikha throughout the war.

In the fall of 1941, plant No. 120 was evacuated to Kamensk-Uralsky and Nizhny Tagil, plant No. 219 was transferred to Kazan and Kuibyshev. During the war years, these enterprises produced 144 thousand sets of aircraft landing gear - 10 times more than before the war. Equipment plant No. 401 remained in the city (later plant No. 582 of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition, now the Scientific Research Engineering Institute). On January 26, 1943, in the Western Industrial Zone, by decision of the State Defense Committee, armored repair plant No. 24 of the Main Armored Directorate of the Red Army (the future Balashikha Truck Crane Plant) was created on the basis of the evacuated plant No. 49.

To use liquid oxygen for military purposes, the installation of new oxygen plant equipment resumed in the summer of 1944. In October 1944, the plant team led by Academician Pyotr Kapitsa obtained liquid oxygen at the most powerful installation in the world. The Balashikha oxygen plant began to produce more than 40 tons of pure oxygen per day. Until the end of the war, the cotton spinning and cloth factories were among the few light industry enterprises in the Moscow region that fulfilled the plan for the volume and range of products.

 

Post-war years

In the post-war years, rapid housing construction began in Balashikha. A complex of houses was built along Entuziastov Highway and Sovetskaya Street. In 1949-1954, a system of names of streets and microdistricts of the city was formed. In 1954, the Pehra-Yakovlevskoye estate became part of the city; in 1961, the microdistrict named after. Yu. A. Gagarin, the villages of Nikolaevka and Leonovo are demolished, city blocks are built in their place, the Yuzhny microdistrict in the southeast of the city is built up, in 1980 the village of Pehra-Yakovlevskoye receives city registration. In the northern direction along the banks of Pekhorka, new microdistricts are emerging: Novy Svet (on the site of the village of Novy Svet that existed since the late 1950s) and Field of Miracles.

At the same time, industry is developing. Repair Plant No. 24 was subordinated to the coal industry in 1945 and began producing equipment for the restored mines of the Donetsk basin. In 1950, the plant was reconstructed and switched to producing automobile cranes. In 1993, the company mastered the production of robotic manipulators. Today it is JSC Balashikha Truck Cranes and Manipulators.

In the post-war years, the Balashikha Oxygen Plant began producing not only pure oxygen, but also other industrial gases - nitrogen, argon and neon of high purity, gas mixtures of a given composition for metrological equipment. Pipelines connected the plant with the Akrikhin medical enterprise in Staraya Kupavna and with the Central District Hospital. In 1990, the plant supplied technical gases to 10 thousand domestic enterprises.

In August 1947, temporary workshops of the Glavkislorod Machine-Building Plant began operating, and in 1951 the entire production complex of the plant was put into operation. In 1957, the plant was named in honor of the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution. A long-term process of improving technology and introducing new equipment led to the formation in 1972 of the Cryogenmash research and production association, headed by V.P. Belyakov, a future academician and Hero of Socialist Labor, on the basis of the plant. In 1975, Cryogenmash was included in the Honor Board of the Exhibition of National Economic Achievements. The heyday of the enterprise occurred in the 80s of the 20th century - a time of development of new technologies in the aerospace industry. The research and production complex has done a lot for the development of the city, especially its northeastern part.

In 1946, based on the remaining capacity of plant No. 219 in the city, a new aviation industry plant No. 279 was created, later the Rubin Aggregate Plant. Rubin Aviation Corporation has become a powerful enterprise whose products have been and continue to be used in aviation, space and underwater exploration, automobile transport, the mining, oil and gas industries, shipbuilding and railways. The Balashikha Foundry and Mechanical Plant, which developed and introduced into production more than 250 types of chassis and 200 automatic brake systems, also developed actively in the post-war years. Its director N.P. Evstafiev became a Hero of Socialist Labor, more than 500 workers were awarded high government awards.

Light industry enterprises continued to develop - the Balashikha Cotton Spinning Factory, whose production volume exceeded 10 thousand tons of yarn, and cloth factory No. 5 of the Moscow Production Association "Podmoskovye" (later OJSC Balashikha Textile), which produced more than 3 million meters of fabric per year. OJSC Balashikha Textile continued to operate until 2005, producing wool yarn and wool and wool blend fabrics.

Since 1952, Balashikha became a city of regional subordination. At this time, more than 60 thousand people lived here, of which 26 thousand worked at industrial enterprises. In Balashikha there were 12 schools, 2 orphanages, 10 kindergartens, an Aviation Evening College and two vocational schools - at BLMZ and at the 1st factory. There were 6 clubs, 5 libraries with a fund of 50 thousand volumes, and 4 stadiums in the city.

In 1954, a city park of culture and recreation was created. On the site of old forest roads, alleys were laid out, flower beds and lawns were laid out, plaster statues were installed, including plaster monuments to A. S. Pushkin and A. M. Gorky, Friendship of Peoples, Girl with an Oar, etc., benches were installed, cafes were built, boat station pier, toilets. The park had game attractions (carousels, swings, strength meters, shooting range, etc.), a dance floor, drinking fountains, a poster alley, a green theater, a reading room, a lecture hall, and a billiard room. After the pond was cleaned in the early 1960s, places for swimming, including winter swimming, were equipped on both banks.

In August 1960, part of the Balashikha district, together with the city of Balashikha, was annexed to Moscow. In January 1961, in development of this reform, the city council was liquidated. However, already in April 1963, Balashikha again acquired a local government body - the city Council of Workers' Deputies (since 1977 - the Council of People's Deputies), to which the restored Balashikha district was subordinate.

In 1966, the Moscow Regional Oncology Center was opened in Balashikha, and in 1963, the Central Regional Hospital was established, located in the building of a former boarding school near the Leonovskoye cemetery. Since 1967, there has been an internship training base for the 1st Moscow Medical Institute, and in 1985 a branch of the Moscow Medical School was opened. In 1985, the city had two hospitals, 4 dispensaries, and 5 clinics.

In June 2003, several settlements of the Balashikha region - the dacha villages (urban settlements) Nikolsko-Arkhangelsky and Saltykovka, the village of Gorbovo, the villages of Nikolsko-Arkhangelskoye, Nikolsko-Trubetskoye and Pehra-Pokrovskoye, the villages of Lukino, Bezmenkovo and Novaya - were included in the city limits of Balashikha . In August 2004, the village named after was also included within the city of Balashikha from the Balashikha district. On May Day, the village of Shchitnikovo and the village of Abramtsevo.

On January 22, 2015, the city of Zheleznodorozhny was included in Balashikha. The population of the united city was 482,209 people, and the population of the united urban district was 501,610 people (as of January 1, 2019). In this regard, Balashikha, as of the beginning of 2016, became the fourth largest city in Russia in terms of population that are not centers of federal subjects (after Togliatti, Novokuznetsk and Naberezhnye Chelny, and occupying a position above Sochi), excluding cities of federal significance.

 

Geography

Balashikha is located in the western part of the Meshchera Lowland with a slightly undulating flat topography, on a sand and pebble plain of glacial origin. The soils are soddy-podzolic and gley-soddy-podzolic. With increasing depth, the sand content increases to 90-97%. In the vicinity of Balashikha there are dumps formed from soil removed during the construction of the Moscow metro.

The climate is moderate continental with sufficient moisture, formed under the influence of air masses from the Atlantic Ocean. Western and southeastern winds predominate. Western and southern cyclones pass through the region throughout the year. The sum of active average daily air temperatures is 1900-2100 degrees, the average annual precipitation varies significantly from year to year and, according to long-term observations, is 500-650 mm. The average annual air humidity is 78%.

The forests are mostly mixed. From the west there are spruce-broadleaf trees, from the east there are pine-broadleaf trees. Forests are wedged into all the main areas of Balashikha. The main wealth of the forests is pine. In the forests, the upper tier consists of pine, spruce with an admixture of birch and oak; aspen is widespread along river valleys. The undergrowth in such forests consists of rowan, buckthorn, and honeysuckle; the soil is covered with a carpet of mosses, grasses, lilies of the valley, and oxalis. Deciduous trees grow mostly along rivers.

The flora of the city's surroundings has been significantly influenced by human activity. In ancient manor parks, plants were planted that did not grow wild in these places. The area of city and manor parks is more than 240 hectares. Until now, there are introduced plants around Balashikha - plants brought here by humans. The basis of the parks is, as a rule, linden plantings. In Gorenki and Pehra-Yakovlevsky, Siberian larch, white poplar, oak-leaved spirea, hawthorn, and Tatarian maple have been preserved. In the vicinity of Balashikha you can find Siberian fir, horse chestnut, prickly spruce, Manchurian walnut, Hungarian and common lilac, Tatarian honeysuckle, Maaka bird cherry. In Pehra-Yakovlevsky you can find such an exotic plant as Sakhalin buckwheat, and in Gorenki - fragrant violet.

There are about 60 reservoirs, lakes, and ponds in the city and its surroundings. The most famous lakes: near the eastern outskirts of Aniskino and Baboshkino, in the north-west Mazurinskoye and Bulganinskoye. The last lake (actually a pond on the Pekhorka River) is not officially named after the Soviet statesman and military leader N.A. Bulganin, who, after his retirement in 1965, lived in a dacha on the shore of the lake. The official name is “Pond of Alekseevskaya Grove”.

The main water artery of Balashikha, which runs through the city from north to south, is the Pekhorka River, which, together with its tributaries, forms a unique complex of ponds that was formed over several centuries. Back in the 15th-16th centuries, small ponds were created in small settlements, one of which, at the confluence of the Malashka River into Pekhorka, in the area of ​​the village of Nikolsko-Trubetskoye, has survived to this day. In the 17th-18th centuries, during the construction of factories on Pekhorka, a new system of ponds arose. Dams and dams were erected in Pehra-Pokrovsky, Bloshikha, Leonovo, Akatovo. In the northern part of Pekhorka, Malanyin Pond was created, which is clearly visible from Shchelkovskoye Highway. The Balashikha factory had its own pond, the width of which was 150 meters. A little further south, near the village of Susanovo-Gushchinka (in the area of the current city park of culture and recreation), another pond 800 meters long and 130 meters wide was formed.

After expansion in 2003–2004, the city occupies a vast territory east of Moscow, stretching from north to south for 16 km, and from west to east for 19 km. The city is located on the Pekhorka and Gorenka rivers. On the city territory there are nine (from 2022 - ten) stopping points of the railway (the Gorenki platform and the Balashikha station - on a branch from the Reutovo station, and five (from 2022 - six) platforms Nikolskoye, Saltykovskaya, Kuchino, Chernoye, Zarya, as well as Olgino (since 2022), and Zheleznodorozhnaya and Kupavna stations (partially) - on the main line of the Gorky direction of the Moscow Railway). Main motor transport arteries: M7 Entuziastov Highway, A103 Shchelkovskoe Highway, Nosovikhinskoe Highway.