Chornogorsk (khak. Kharatas) is a city in Russia, the
administrative center of the urban district, the city of Chernogorsk
of the Republic of Khakassia. The second city of Khakassia after the
capital of the republic in terms of population: 75 419 people.
(2020).
By order of the Government of the Russian Federation
of July 29, 2014 No. 1398-r "On the approval of the list of
single-industry towns", the City District of the city of Chernogorsk
was included in the category "Single-industry municipalities of the
Russian Federation (single-industry towns) with the most difficult
socio-economic situation."
It was formed in 1936 by the merger of several villages at coal mines. In the name of the city, the black element symbolizes coal mining, and the gorsk component is formed from the word "city".
Chernogorsk is located 16 km north-west of Abakan, in the Minusinsk depression, on the northern edge of the Abakan steppe, south of the Podkuninskaya ridge. The federal highway P257 "Yenisei" runs along the eastern border of the city, to the east of which, to the confluence of the Abakan River with the Yenisei near the village of Ust-Abakan, about five kilometers.
The history of the city begins in 1907
with the beginning of the operation of a coal mine founded by Vera
Arsenyevna Balandina. Near the mine, a working settlement called
Montenegrin Kopi was formed, which consisted of two barracks, half a
dozen dugouts and one hospital. By the 1930s, a mining and
industrial school, a house of culture, kindergartens, a school were
opened in the village, and a water supply was installed. Among the
industrial enterprises, in addition to the mine, a central power
station, mechanical workshops, a bakery, a brick and crushing plant,
and a carpentry workshop were put into operation.
On January
20, 1936, the settlement, formed after the merger of the village of
Chernogorskie Kopi and several near-dwelling settlements of the
Minusinsk coal basin, was given the official status and name: the
city of Chernogorsk.
The first forced labor camp of the NKVD
of the USSR appeared in Chernogorsk in 1942. By 1953, the city had
eleven camps of various conditions of detention, and the number of
prisoners in them, according to the international society
"Memorial", reached 12,000 people. Prisoners' labor was mainly used
in the mines. Work shifts lasted 12 hours, they had to work
knee-deep in water, the level of mechanization was very low. In
1955, the Montenegrin camp system was abolished.
By the
1980s, the city was one of the industrial centers of the Krasnoyarsk
Territory. Among the main enterprises of the city were several
mines, a mine, a woodworking plant, a plant for the production of
reinforced concrete products. The economy of the city was also made
up of enterprises of light and textile industries: an artificial
leather factory, a worsted-cloth association, and a factory for
primary processing of wool.
In the 1990s, the worsted and
woolen plant, the plant of reinforced concrete structures, the
Iskozh plant, the Siberia plant, the Khakass plant of building
materials (the largest in Eastern Siberia), a woodworking plant and
others ceased to exist.
In the 2010s, the brick factory
ceased to exist.