/178.jpg)
Nizhnevartovsk is a city in Russia, the administrative center of
the Nizhnevartovsk region of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug -
Ugra. The city is located on the banks of the Ob River in close
proximity to the Samotlor oil field and is one of the largest
centers of the Russian oil industry.
Starting from the 1960s
- the era of active development of deposits in Western Siberia - a
small village began to develop dynamically and by now has turned
into a modern, comfortable city for life.
Population - 277
668 people. (2020). The second largest city in the Okrug, one of the
few Russian regional cities that surpasses the administrative center
of its constituent entity (Khanty-Mansiysk) both in terms of
population and economic potential. One of the safest cities in
Russia.
By plane
Nizhnevartovsk Airport is located on the western
outskirts of the city, about 5 km from the center. Serves regular
flights to many cities in Russia. City buses and minibuses run from the
airport to the city.
1 Nizhnevartovsk Airport.
By train
The city is served by the Nizhnevartovsk I railway station and is
connected by direct trains to Moscow and a number of cities in the Urals
and Volga region. There is also a commuter train to Surgut.
2 Nizhnevartovsk I, Severnaya, 37. Large modern station, open 24 hours
a day.
By bus
Nizhnevartovsk is connected by bus routes with
many cities of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, as well as with
Kurgan, Tobolsk, Tyumen and the city of Strezhevoy in the Tomsk region.
The bus station is located in the railway station building.
3 Bus station, Severnaya, 37.
The city has an extensive network of commercial and non-commercial public transport. Taxi price from 120 rubles.
City Drama Theater
In 1985, the theater-studio “Skvoreshnik”
appeared in Nizhnevartovsk, from which the City Drama Theater
originated. The theater switched to a professional basis in the fall of
1995, when a stable repertoire appeared and a troupe of actors was
formed. The modern building of the City Drama Theater opened in 2001.
The theater constantly takes part in Russian and foreign international
festivals and invites leading theater critics. He is the organizer of
the international theater festival of small-form performances “Northern
Meetings”, hosting Russian and foreign theaters on its stage.
Nizhnevartovsk Theater for Young Spectators
The history began with
the Barabashka Puppet Theater with the play “The Golden Chicken,” shown
in 1989, when the team of the Honored Cultural Worker of Bashkiria Yuri
Kuznetsov appeared in the city. The building of the former recreation
center "Yubileiny" on the street was adapted for artists. 60 Let
Oktyabrya, 18/1, made the necessary extensions. The name “Barabashka”
was invented through an advertisement in the newspaper, chosen from many
options. Since then, the theater has staged several dozen performances
for audiences of different ages. Several productions for the little ones
were performed here by Igor Larin, Igor Ignatiev and Andrey Efimov, the
theater’s chief director in the 2011/2012 season. The team repeatedly
took part in the festival in Tyumen (5 Golden Horse awards), went on
tour to neighboring areas: Tobolsk, Novoangarsk, Langepas, Kondinskoye,
Khanty-Mansiysk, as well as to Omsk, Belgorod, Varna (Bulgaria).
In
the 2018/2019 season, the Barabashka Theater became the Theater for
Young Spectators - the new status made it possible to stage more
performances for adults, and there were also more evening shows. “The
puppet theater will not leave us anywhere, so viewers don’t have to
worry,” assured production director Varvara Shmeleva.
Festival
"Samotlor Nights"
Since 1976, the Samotlor Nights festival of arts,
labor and sports has been held. The festival period is held annually in
the first ten days of June. The event usually involves a complex of
various folk festivals, concerts, exhibitions, etc. The People's
Friendship Festival takes place on the street of the same name. It opens
with a theatrical procession of national public organizations and
non-profit organizations of ethnocultural orientation. Veteran oil
workers, honorary citizens of Nizhnevartovsk, as well as representatives
of youth public associations take part in the procession. On the day of
the celebration, “ethnic sites” are placed on Friendship of Peoples
Street, reflecting the culture of different nationalities living in
Nizhnevartovsk. This is where the white nights last the longest. During
the festival, traditional “Samotlor weddings” are played - the newlyweds
are welcomed by the city at the “Strong Family - Strong Power” holiday.
The opening and closing ceremonies of the Samotlor Nights festival,
as a rule, take place at the Central Stadium, with the participation of
creative teams from cultural and educational institutions, as well as
youth public organizations, students and schoolchildren of the city. In
addition, famous musicians are often invited. “Samotlor Nights” is a
tradition started by young builders of Nizhnevartovsk. The author is
Evgenia Petrovna Ardashova, head of the culture department in those
years.
Nizhnevartovsk Museum of Local Lore
The museum was
founded on November 1, 1973 on a voluntary basis. On February 1, 1978,
the museum became a branch of the regional museum of local history
called “Museum of the Development of Oil Resources of the Middle Ob
Region”. The museum collection at that time consisted of 2137 items. On
March 11, 2003, a branch of the “Museum of the History of Russian Life”
was opened as part of the museum complex, which is located in the center
of the historical core of the city - Old Vartovsk. It is a historical
and residential complex, consisting of a wooden two-story house and a
complex of outbuildings (barns, bathhouses, flocks, imports). Each
building houses museum exhibition complexes: a peasant hut and an upper
room, a vestibule, an upper room of wealthy merchants, and the interior
of a room from the 1930s-1940s.
Center of National Cultures
The Center for National Cultures is an institution working towards
preserving the traditions, historical and cultural heritage of different
nationalities living on the territory of Nizhnevartovsk. All activities
of the institution are aimed at the unity and mutual enrichment of
cultures of different ethnic groups through the joint implementation of
creative projects. More than 250 events are held annually, including:
Days of National Cultures, national holidays and festivals, conferences
on the development of interethnic ties and relations, thematic concerts
and literary and musical lounges. One of the priority areas of
development is the preservation and popularization of the culture and
art of the indigenous peoples of the north - the Khanty and Mansi.
Palace of Arts
The former name was “House of Technology”, the
concert hall of which is designed to host stars of the first magnitude.
Every year, the Palace of Arts hosts about 450 events, which are
attended by more than 200 thousand citizens. In different halls you can
hold several events simultaneously for three thousand people. Creative
teams are regular participants in regional events in Khanty-Mansiysk and
other cities of the district. The Palace of Arts is the organizer of the
main large-scale events in the cultural life of the city, such as: the
city Festival of Arts, Labor and Sports “Samotlor Nights”, “City Day”,
“Oilman’s Day”, “Farewell to Winter”, “Victory Day” and others.
Palace of Culture "October"
Construction began in 1974 in one of the
greenest places in Nizhnevartovsk, near the House of Soviets. Initially,
it was planned to build a cinema with 763 seats. During construction,
the cinema was reformatted into a palace of culture. One of the
decorations of the building is the mosaic panel “To the Conquerors of
Siberia and Fire”, made by master Nikolai Gordeev. The panel is located
in the second floor foyer.
Nizhnevartovsk is located in the Middle Ob Lowland of the West Siberian Plain in the middle reaches of the Ob on its right bank. Geographic coordinates: 60°57′00″ N. w. 76°36′00″ E. etc. From the end of May to mid-July in cities of this latitude you can observe the phenomenon of white nights.
Nizhnevartovsk, like the entire district, is located in the MSC+2 time zone. The applied time offset relative to UTC is +5:00. In accordance with the applied time and geographic longitude, average solar noon in Nizhnevartovsk occurs at 11:59.
The main watercourse of the city is the Ob River, from the mouth of
the Svetlaya channel to the Lokosovskaya channel. Within the
Nizhnevartovsk region, the section of the middle reaches of the Ob has a
length of 134 km, the width of the floodplain is from 18 to 20 km. By
the nature of the water regime, it belongs to the type of river with
spring-summer floods and floods in the warm period of the year. The
duration of the flood is on average 60-130 days. The appearance of ice
formations on rivers is typical in the second half of October - early
November. The average duration of freeze-up is 180-200 days. In
hydrographic terms, the taiga zone of the Ob River differs sharply from
the forest-steppe zone adjacent to it from the south; this difference is
primarily associated with a change in the ratio of water balance
elements. With a noticeable increase in atmospheric precipitation and a
decrease in its losses due to evaporation, surface runoff here sharply
increases.
In 2015, the largest flooding in thirty years occurred
in the areas adjacent to Nizhnevartovsk, including numerous dachas and
gardening partnerships. The reason for the dynamics of the water level
rise was the climatic features of the spring period.
Nizhnevartovsk is located in the continental climate zone. The
climate is characterized by long winters, long-term snow cover (200-210
days), short transition seasons, late spring and early autumn frosts, a
short frost-free period (100-110 days), and a short summer (10-14
weeks). Winter is characterized by significant day-to-day variability of
air temperature, the average value of which is 5°C.
The annual
cycle of precipitation is of the continental type. During the cold
season, about 20% of the annual amount falls. Most of them fall in the
first months of winter. The maximum amount of precipitation in a year
falls in the summer months of the year - from June to August. In some
years, the amount of precipitation may deviate significantly from the
norm. The annual minimum precipitation occurs in February. Snow cover
forms in October - early November, and its disappearance is observed in
late April - early May.
Like the entire district, it is equated
to the regions of the Far North.
Average annual air temperature -
−0.9°C
Relative humidity - 78%
Average wind speed - 3.5 m/s
In the Nizhnevartovsk region, as throughout the entire territory of
the Middle Ob region, cedar forests are indigenous, and birch and aspen
forests that arose in their place are derivatives. The forests of the
region are based on three species: pine, cedar and birch. Among forest
formations, pine forests dominate in area. Siberian pine forests occupy
less than a quarter of the forested area. A third of the area is
occupied by small-leaved forests.
Pine forests are found on sandy
and sandy loam, highly podzolic soils and are confined to elevated areas
of the relief. The most common types are lichen and lingonberry pine
forests.
Characteristic of cedar forests is the good development
of the herb-shrub layer, in which the predominant role belongs to forest
shrubs (blueberry, lingonberry, crowberry, wild rosemary) and taiga
small grasses (northern linna, sorrel sorrel, and bifolia). The shrubs
are represented by individual specimens of Siberian mountain ash. Green
mosses are always present in these forests.
The causes of atmospheric air pollution in the region are:
Nizhnevartovsk State District Power Plant, boiler plants, flaring of
associated petroleum gas, evaporation of light fractions of hydrocarbons
from the surface of emergency oil spills, as well as from oil storage
tanks. Control over maximum permissible emissions is carried out at
almost all stationary sources of pollution. According to monitoring of
maximum permissible concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen oxide,
sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, dust, soot, hydrocarbons in the air of
under-flare zones, the average annual values are significantly lower
than the maximum permissible values.
About 98% of the district's
population is provided with a planned and regular system for the
collection and removal of solid municipal waste, of which 92% are
provided with a centralized container collection system. In the village
of Laryak (200 km to the east) there is an installation for incinerating
solid household waste.
Information about the environmental
situation is regularly broadcast on local television (the latest
information was published in 2020).
The name of Nizhnevartovsk comes from a section of the Ob bank suitable for the construction of a pier, which was called Vartovsky Yar (in the old days, a concave steep bank of the river was called a yar), in turn derived from the Vartovsky Khanty yurts, known from the second half of the 18th century. The prefix "Nizhne-" is due to the fact that 180 versts upstream of the Ob River there was another yar with the same name. To distinguish it from it, the new pier was named "Nizhne-Vartovskaya", which was later transferred to the settlement founded under it.
Vartovsky Yar has been mentioned as a place suitable for
mooring steamers since the mid-1870s. In 1888 Nizhne-Vartovskaya
pier was founded here. Initially, the pier was only an economic
facility, but at the beginning of the 20th century (according to
various sources, in 1905 or 1909) a permanent settlement arose near
it, in 1911 it consisted of three courtyards with 17 residents.
The first years of Soviet power
At the beginning of 1924, the
Nizhnevartovsk village council was formed. On February 24, 1962, the
village of Nizhnevartovskoye became the center of the Nizhnevartovsk
region.
Oil boom
1965 became a landmark in the history of
the future city - the discovery of the Samotlor deposit
predetermined the further fate of this area. The village of
Nizhnevartovskoye was transformed into the settlement of
Nizhnevartovsky.
In the period 1909-1917, the village of
Vartovskoe below the Ob River was part of the Tobolsk province, the
Surgut district, the Lokosov foreign volost on the zemstvo tract.
However, in the neighboring Lumpopovskaya foreign volost there was
also the Verkhne Vartovskaya yurt near the Ob River. In February
1965, Nizhnevartovsk was declared a Komsomol construction site, not
only young people, but also married couples came here from different
parts of the country. On May 1, 1965, SMU-5 was created
(construction and installation department No. 5). The oil workers
have allocated six tents and an unfinished barrack for the residence
of married couples, where an office and a hostel for bachelors are
located. The management of NPU "Megionneft" gave the task of SMU-5
for 1965: to build a bathhouse, a kindergarten, a flour warehouse
and 20 houses, and to equip the Bagrasskoye field. One bulldozer was
allocated for the field development, all other work was done
manually.
On March 23, 1967 the Nizhnevartovsk television
center was opened.
In December 1965, on the initiative of the
head of NPU Megionneft B.I.Osipov, a polyclinic appeared in the
village.
By order of Osipov, the educational complex under
construction was given over to a school. At the end of October 1966,
an unplanned boiler house provided heat. By November 7, the
kindergarten received children, a bathhouse was launched. A year
later, the building, which was being built for the "target" object -
the morgue, turned into a television studio. On New Year's Eve,
oilmen installed a "drilling" TV tower. In February 1967, the window
to the world was "broken", residents of the cities of Nizhnevartovsk
and Megion saw the program of the central television for the first
time. Contrary to the plans of the state, the "Jubilee" club of oil
workers was built, which would later be called "50 years of the
Komsomol".
In 1967, the government issued a decree on urgent
measures for the development of the Samotlor field in the village of
Nizhnevartovsky. The Council of Ministers ordered the Moscow, Omsk,
Perm builders to send brigades to the north of the Tyumen region to
build the city.
The airport was opened in 1971.
On
March 9, 1972, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
of the RSFSR, the settlement was transformed into the city of
Nizhnevartovsk. On October 19 of the same year, the air
communication Nizhnevartovsk - Moscow was opened. In 1976, the
implementation of the RAP II project began.
In 1975-1976, a
railway was built to Surgut, thanks to which passenger traffic was
organized.
In 1980, a regular passenger train service was
opened to Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). In 2002, the construction
of a new station building for 900 passengers, which had lasted
twenty years, was completed.
Since 1975, the Samotlor Nights
festival has been held, since 1985 - the Sabantuy folk holiday. In
the late 1970s - early 1980s, due to the gradual depletion of oil
reserves in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan and the shift of the center
of the oil industry to Western Siberia, many Tatar and Bashkir oil
workers and their families moved to Nizhnevartovsk, which explains
the significant proportion of Tatars and Bashkirs in the population
of Nizhnevartovsk.
In 1978, one third of all oil produced in
the USSR was of Samotlor origin. In 1980, one billionth ton of
Nizhnevartovsk oil was produced, in 1986 - two billionth. 1980 also
saw the peak of oil production from the Samotlor field: 158.8
million tons per year. Later, due to the depletion of deposits,
production began to decline. In September 1985, the General
Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M.S.Gorbachev visited
Nizhnevartovsk.
An Orthodox community was officially
established in the city in 1989, and a Muslim one in 1991. In 1990,
the foundation stone was consecrated, and in 1993 the construction
of the Church of the Nativity of Christ began. The temple was
consecrated on 4 July 1999 by Archbishop Dimitri of Tobolsk and
Tyumen.
In the 2010s, the city began to actively build up to
the east - in just a few years, several new neighborhoods arose at
once. The construction boom has become the largest since the 70s and
80s. The city center has also been decorated with many new
buildings, both residential and public.
In 2013, the concept
of the Nizhnevartovsk agglomeration and its long-term development
was formed, which, in addition to Izluchinsk, Megion, Langepas and
Raduzhny, also included the city of Strezhevoy, which belongs to the
Tomsk region. In 2014, a strong road connection was established with
the latter thanks to the completion of the construction of a bridge
over the Vakh River.