Nizhneudinsk is a city in the Irkutsk region, the administrative center of the Nizhneudinsk region. Forms the Nizhneudinskoe municipal formation.
Located on the Uda River - the right tributary of
the Taseyeva River (Angara basin), 506 km north-west of Irkutsk. It
was named Nizhneudinsk to distinguish it from the city of
Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude, Buryatia) formed at the mouth of the
Uda River in Transbaikalia.
The area of the city is 7.5
thousand hectares. 18 km from Nizhneudinsk, downstream of the river.
Uda is the Ukovsky waterfall (height - 20 m). 75 km up the Uda,
south of the city, at an altitude of about 460 m above the river
level, there are the Nizhneudinskie caves.
In Nizhneudinsky
district, 209 km from the regional center, there is Tofalaria, the
region of residence of the Tofalars, one of the smallest ethnic
groups in Russia.
Moving to the Sayan region,
the Russians met with serious resistance from the Udi Buryats,
united under the rule of the prince Oylan (Ilanko). And only after a
large detachment of the Krasnoyarsk Cossacks under the leadership of
atamans Miloslav Koltsov and Yelisei Tyumentsev defeated the main
forces of the Buryats in August 1645, these lands began to be
populated and developed by Russians. In 1647, Oylan recognized the
domination of the Russian Tsar and beat his forehead about the
construction of a prison in his lands "to protect them, brotherly
people, from other non-peaceful lands, from wars and for the yasak
collection." The next year, ataman Yelisey Tyumentsev was sent up
the Uda with a detachment of Krasnoyarsk Cossacks, who laid the
foundation on October 14, 1648, on the day of the Intercession of
the Most Holy Theotokos, on the high right bank of the Uda
"sovereign winter quarters" (Pokrovsky town).
In 1664, the
Udi settlement was awarded the title of a prison and it becomes not
only a fortification, but also a center of trade and agriculture.
In the summer of 1666, the fort was ravaged by the Yenisei
Kyrgyz, led by Irenek.
In 1700, the Udinsky prison was
renamed into Nizhneudinsky, in contrast to the Udinsky prison in
Transbaikalia (the future Verkhneudinsk).
From the middle of
the eighteenth century, a slow development of a prison settlement
into a small town began. This was due, first of all, to the laying
of the Moscow highway that passed through Nizhneudinsk. Its
settlement begins, the number of nearby villages grows. A post
station and an inn were established in Nizhneudinsk.
In 1783,
Nizhneudinsk received the status of a district town, in which there
was a coachman's settlement (28 houses) and 84 people of the
bourgeois class lived, not counting the peasants. In 1780, the
city's coat of arms was approved.
Since the end of the 18th
century, the city itself has hardly grown. The local bourgeois
society was in the most miserable condition and constantly
complained about their poverty and the inability to bear state
duties. But it was much more lively on the left bank of the Uda. It
is no coincidence that it was in the settlement that the stone
Resurrection Cathedral was laid, built in one connection with the
bell tower. It was erected in 1780-1783 by the Yenisei townspeople
S. Zlygostev and A. Funtasov. The cathedral was consecrated in 1785.
In 1789, along with other cities of Siberia, Nizhneudinsk
received a master plan, which marked the existing buildings and
showed the promising development of the city. The plan clearly shows
that the settlement consisted, as it were, of two parts - the city
itself with a complex of state and state buildings, a prison, a
church and Podgorodnaya Sloboda on the opposite bank.
In 1822
Nizhneudinsk was included in the category of low-power cities, but
two decades later noticeable changes took place in its fate. This
was most clearly manifested in the dynamics of the urban population.
If in 1823 there were 412 male souls, in 1835 - 801, then by the
1860s there were already more than 4.5 thousand souls.
The
opening of the Biryusin gold mines in the 1830s contributed to the
revitalization of trade and fishing activities, and the growth of
the urban population. During these years, the city became the
residence of the Sayan gold diggers. In 1830, a six-storey seating
yard with storage rooms for goods was built, but trade was carried
out mainly in merchant shops. The economic life of the city was
influenced by the fact that the Moscow highway passed through it. In
addition, from Nizhneudinsk there was a winter route to Lena.
Another impetus in the development of the city took place at the
end of the 19th century, when the Trans-Siberian railway passed by.
The population grew sharply, and at the beginning of the twentieth
century it amounted to 6 thousand people, and by 1917 - almost 9
thousand. Since 1897, the construction of a railway station and a
locomotive depot began in Nizhneudinsk. The number of railroad
workers is growing rapidly. Already in 1900, about 1.3 thousand
people worked in the depot and at a distance. With the construction
of the railway, the Nizhneudinsky district began to quickly
populate, dozens of new villages and forest areas appear.
During the First World War, a prisoner of war camp was created in
Nizhneudinsk. In the winter of 1915-1916, 2,200 prisoners of war
were kept in the camp, as a result of which the city became one of
the centers of the White Czech uprising in Siberia. It was in
Nizhneudinsk, under pressure from the White Czechs, that the Supreme
Ruler of Russia, Alexander Kolchak, renounced his rank, after which
the Czechoslovak troops escorted him to Irkutsk, thus obtaining a
pass for himself to the Far East.
Since the 1930s, the city
began to develop as an industrial center. In 1932, an enterprise
appeared, which laid the foundation for a modern mica factory, in
1939 - a confectionery factory, then mechanical repair shops, a
brick factory, a meat-packing plant were built, a brewery and a
furniture factory were reconstructed.
On February 1, 1963,
Nizhneudinsk was assigned to the category of cities of regional
subordination.
In connection with the massive development in
the 1970s-1980s, the face of the city has changed significantly.
Almost all the historical buildings of the Podgorodnaya Sloboda were
demolished, except for the earliest, island one. On the site of the
old buildings, there are modern quarters of multi-storey residential
buildings. During the construction of a new bridge across the Uda,
the buildings in the historical center of the city were badly
damaged. Historical and reserved places include buildings on the
island between the river. Milk and channel Zastryanka, separate
quarters on the street. Sbitnev, Lenin, Turgenev.
Modern
Nizhneudinsk covers an area of over 7 thousand hectares. There are
over 70 enterprises and organizations in the city. The city's
population doubled during the post-war period and exceeded 40
thousand people.
Station of the East Siberian Railway.
Route P 255
"Siberia" (M53).
Nizhneudinsk airport.
The main mode of
transport is rail. In 2004, the reconstruction of the locomotive
depot and the railway station was completed.
Air
transportation is carried out by OJSC "Nizhneudinskoe Aviation
Enterprise". Since 2010, after the bankruptcy procedure, the company
has been bought by IrkutskAvia (in 2011, it merged with the Angara
airline).
Road transport is carried out by MUP "Transavto"
and individual entrepreneurs.