Novokuznetsk is a city in the Kemerovo region of Russia, the
administrative center of the Novokuznetsk municipal district, which
is not part of and forms the Novokuznetsk urban district. The first
in terms of area in Kuzbass and the second in terms of population,
as well as the oldest city in the Kemerovo region.
Located in
the south of Western Siberia, on both banks of the Tom River, in the
southern part of the Kemerovo Region.
The city was originally
founded in 1618 as a prison near the confluence of the Kondoma River
with the Tom River. In 1620, the fort was moved to the high terrace
of the right bank of the Tom (in this place the Kuznetsk fortress is
now located).
Novokuznetsk - the thirty-first in Russia in
terms of population; an important economic, transport and cultural
center of Siberia. Population - 549 403 people. (2020). The area of
the city is 424.27 km². The city is the center of the Novokuznetsk
(Kuzbass) agglomeration, with a population of more than 1.3 million
people, it is the 12th largest in Russia.
Novokuznetsk is one
of the largest metallurgical and coal mining centers in Russia. City
Day is celebrated on the first Sunday in July.
By the decree
of the President of the Russian Federation dated July 2, 2020, the
city was awarded the title "City of Labor Valor".
By plane
The city has an airport, which is connected to
Novokuznetsk by bus No. 160. By bus you can get to the Central and
Kuybyshevsky districts (to the railway station, Kurako Ave., Tsiolkovsky
St., Oktyabrsky Ave.). Unfortunately, for an agglomeration of millions,
there are disproportionately few flights from the airport.
By
train
The Novokuznetsk railway junction has greater saturation than
the Kemerovo one. This applies to both long-distance and commuter
trains. Novokuznetsk is connected by trains to many distant and
relatively close cities. At the moment, rail transport is the most
convenient way to travel to Novokuznetsk. The railway station is located
in the very center of the city and has recently been reconstructed.
By car
The city is the beginning of several highways along which
you can get to Kemerovo, Mezhdurechensk, Osinniki, Tashtagol, Biysk. The
easiest way to get there is along the highway coming from Kemerovo. This
is a road that has two lanes for traffic in each direction, runs outside
populated areas and does not have level intersections with other roads.
It starts from the ring surrounding the traffic police post at the
entrance to the city. The road has a backup track called "Old Route". It
goes in the same direction, but within the boundaries of populated
areas, of which there are a lot in the vicinity of Novokuznetsk. Almost
50 kilometers from its beginning the route passes through the
residential areas of Kiselevsk and Prokopyevsk.
All entrances to
Novokuznetsk from the western and southern sides are connected by a
bypass road. But entry through Kalachevo is still the most popular. This
is due to the fact that there is no northern bypass of the city, and the
Kalachevsky entrance is the closest route to the center and to the most
populated and business-rich areas in the northern part of the city.
By bus
Novokuznetsk has a fairly large bus station, mostly
serving numerous Novokuznetsk suburbs. The most convenient way to get to
Novokuznetsk is by bus from Kemerovo. There are 1-3 flights a day from
Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Tomsk to Novokuznetsk.
On the ship
There
is a river station in Novokuznetsk, but since the Tom River is not
navigable in many of its sections, it is impossible to reach
Novokuznetsk by water from the nearest city along the river - Kemerovo.
The station served commuter routes and pleasure boats. Currently not
valid.
There is no metro in Novokuznetsk. But there are regular services of trams, trolleybuses and minibuses. From the bus station you can get to the most distant places of the Novokuznetsk region.
1 Savior Transfiguration Cathedral. Stone cathedral of the 19th
century.
2 Museum-reserve “Kuznetsk Fortress” (Bus No. 5, 21, 27,
52, 56, 60, 61, 152, 163, 164, 168, 169, tram No. 2, 6, 8, 9, 12, 12a to
the stop Sovetskaya Square; by electric train to Topolniki Square. Along
Vodopadnaya Street and Krepostny Proezd on foot (about 1 km)). The
fortress on Mount Voznesenskaya was built in 1800-1820. as part of the
Siberian line. Along the perimeter of the fortress with a total area of
20 hectares, in the shape of an elongated rectangle, there is an earthen
rampart with steps, on the inside of which there are ramps for raising
guns. There are half-bastions in the corners, two of them (Tomsky and
Kuznetsky) are lined with sandstone slabs. In the gap between the stone
half-bastions, a brick three-story travel observation tower was built,
from which the road to Barnaul branched off. Inside the fortress there
were 8 stone buildings (guardhouse, powder magazine, soldier's barracks,
chief officer's house, soldier's kitchen, headquarters officer's house,
training house, Barnaul travel tower) and one wooden one for storing
fire extinguishing vehicles. The fortress never took part in hostilities
and was decommissioned in 1846 and transferred to the mining department.
Subsequently, it housed a prison for criminals (Kuznetsk Prison Castle).
In 1919, Red partisans burned down the prison. The stone buildings were
gradually dismantled. Since 1960, when the fortress received the status
of a monument of republican significance, gradual restoration of the
fortress buildings began. The guardhouse, restored in the late 1970s,
burned down in 1997. In 1998, the Barnaul Tower was restored and the
soldiers' barracks were rebuilt. In 2008 - chief officers' house. In
addition to fortifications, you can admire the waterfall in a narrow
canyon near the site of the Verkhotomsky redoubt.
3 Memorial complex
“Boulevard of Heroes”.
1 Novokuznetsk Museum of Local Lore, Pionersky Prospekt, 24. ☎ +7
(3843) 74-18-04. 11:00 - 19:00. 200 rub.
12 House-Museum of F. M.
Dostoevsky.
2 Novokuznetsk Drama Theatre, pr. Metallurgov, 28. ☎ +7
(3843) 74-05-35. One of the oldest theaters in Kuzbass, the theater
opened on November 6, 1933. In 1963, the current building in the
imperial classical style was built for the theater.
Cheap
1 Minihotel “Quiet Yard”, Kazarnovskogo proezd, 5 (in the
city center, a three-minute walk from the Krytyi Rynok stop, from which
you can easily get to anywhere in the city without transfers, 5 minutes
from the Railway or Auto Station.). ☎ +7 (3843) 79-96-70+7 (3843)
960-700. From 400 rub. (2013). There are 4 rooms in the “Quiet
Courtyard” - one double, one double + two extra beds, two for six. The
hostel also has a spacious living room, comfortable for communication,
which has a TV, books, magazines, a computer connected to the WI-FI
Internet. The hostel has a shower and toilet, as well as a kitchenette
(stove, refrigerator, microwave, kettle, dishes). Clean bed linen and
towel are included in the price. In the hostel you can rent an entire
room, which is convenient for those traveling with a group or family.
You can also rent a separate place in the room, which is much cheaper
and more convenient for individual tourists. Not far from the hostel
there are paid guarded parking, a supermarket and shops, a bathhouse, a
hairdresser, a pharmacy, restaurants, and fast food cafes.
It was founded in 1618 as the Kuznetsk prison on the right bank of the Tom River. The name is due to the fact that blacksmithing was quite widespread among the indigenous population of these places - the northern Shors. In Russian documents of the 17th century, local Shors are called "Kuznetsk people" or "Kuznetsk Tatars", and their area of residence, respectively, "Kuznetskaya Zemlya". The settlement that grew out of the prison was called Kuznetsk or Kuznetsk-Siberian to distinguish it from the city of Kuznetsk in the Penza province. In 1929, in connection with the beginning of the construction of the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine, the village of Sad-Gorod appeared on the left bank of the Tom, in 1931 it was renamed the city of Novokuznetsk, and in 1932 - in Stalinsk. In 1939, the "old" Kuznetsk was annexed to it, after which the united city was called Stalinsk-Kuznetsk for some time, and then again Stalinsk. In the course of de-Stalinization in 1961, the name of Novokuznetsk was returned to the city.
The history of the origin and development of the
city
Novokuznetsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. It was
founded in the spring of 1618 as the Kuznetsk stockade near the
confluence of the Kondoma River with the Tom River. In 1620 the fort
was transferred to a high terrace on the right bank of the river.
Tomi, becoming the original nucleus of the future city from 1620
until the end of the 1920s.
Red terror
During the Civil
War, the city of Kuznetsk became notorious for the bloody events
organized by the red partisans during the excessive (even for that
time) liquidation of non-proletarian classes in the course of the
class struggle.
A well-known journalist of the 1920s, Andrei
Kruchina, in his essay “In a remote corner, in Kuznetsk” (1923),
reports: “The name of the partisan Rogov will remain in the memory
of the population of the Kuznetsk Okrug for a long time ... there
are no calluses on his hands ... He did not hang, did not shoot, but
simply chopped off the head of everyone who, in his opinion, was an
"enemy of the people." In Kuznetsk, the Rogovs chopped off seven
hundred heads. Institutions have been completely smashed, all papers
in institutions, books - everything is set on fire. All the churches
and houses of the rich have been destroyed or burned ... The seal of
the Rogov region is still on Kuznetsk. Almost a quarter of the
houses in the city are gaping with black hollows instead of windows
... ".
Pavel Nikolayevich Putilov, Lieutenant General and
Knight of St. George, who lived in Kuznetsk, was brutally killed
(sawn with a saw) by partisans. Now a monument has been erected in
the city. The cathedral and most of the city's churches were robbed
and desecrated.
Rogov was not a commander of the Red Army,
and acted, either recognizing the leadership of the Bolsheviks, then
on his own, and was eventually eliminated by the Red Army. In Soviet
times, on the one hand, they tried to dissociate themselves from the
activities of Rogov, on the other hand, the veterans of the Rogov
detachment enjoyed a certain respect as “red partisans”.
The modern industrial city of Novokuznetsk was
formed on July 3, 1931 by the decision of the Presidium of the
Central Executive Committee of the USSR from the village of
Sad-Gorod (since 1929) at a metallurgical plant under construction.
In May 1932 it was renamed Stalinsk. In October 1932, Kuznetsk
was annexed to Stalin. The united city was called Stalinsk. On
November 5, 1961, by the decree of the Presidium of the RSFSR Armed
Forces, Stalinsk was again renamed Novokuznetsk.
In the
1930s, the Stalinist industrialization of the USSR turned the city
into an important coal mining and industrial center. The famous poem
by Vladimir Mayakovsky "Khrenov's story about Kuznetskstroy and the
people of Kuznetsk" is dedicated to Novokuznetsk ("I know - the city
will be, I know - the garden will bloom when there are such people
in the Soviet country"). From 1926 to 1939, the city's population
grew by a record 4354%.
In 1929, according to the project of
the American company "Frein", under the leadership of the chief
engineer Ivan Bardin, the construction of the Kuznetsk Metallurgical
Combine began, which started operating in 1931. In 1941, the
evacuated Novokuznetsk aluminum plant and the Kuznetsk ferroalloy
plant were launched; The Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine produced
military products; combat vehicles of several tank formations were
made from KMK steel. Later, the West Siberian Metallurgical Plant
was built (1964).
The importance of Stalinsk is also
evidenced by the fact that, in accordance with the first post-war
plan of war against the USSR), it was included in the number of 20
cities of the USSR that were subject to atomic bombing; also
included in subsequent similar lists.
On July 25, 1941, the
Vilna Infantry School was evacuated to Stalinsk, which already from
August 15 began training officers and commanders for the Red Army.
In 1986, perestroika began in the USSR. The failure of the economic
reform of 1987 led to the start of a miners' strike in the Kemerovo
region. Despite the fact that Novokuznetsk is more a city of
metallurgists than miners, in 1989 it became one of the centers of
the miners' strike.
By 1970, the city's population exceeded 500 thousand people.
According to the 1989 census, the city's population
was 614,726 people.
By 1998, the city fell into decay.
However, the 1998 crisis and the associated depreciation of the
ruble again made coal mining and ferrous metallurgy profitable.
In 1998-2000, the industrial enterprises of the city became the
subject of a struggle between the financial and industrial groups
MIK (controlled by NKAZ and KMK in 1997-1999), Evraz (ZSMK since
1998, KMK since 1999), Alfa Group (ZSMK in 1997- 1999) and Rusal
(NKAZ since 2000), which ended with the transition of the
enterprises of KMK and ZSMK to Evraz.
The economic growth of
the 2000s led to active housing and business construction in the
city.