Orsk is a city of regional subordination in Russia, the
administrative center of an urban district in the Orenburg region.
The city of Orsk includes three administrative districts: Leninsky,
Oktyabrsky, Sovetsky. The total area of the city is 621.33 km²,
according to this indicator Orsk is one of the ten cities in Russia
with the largest area.
Population - 226 502 people. (2020).
The city is located 286 km from Orenburg. In the west, Orsk
practically borders on Novotroitsk: the distance between the cities
is 8 kilometers.
Orsk is the second city in the Orenburg
region in terms of population and industrial significance.
At
the end of 2019, he scored 145 points (out of 360 possible) in the
Urban Environment Quality Index (National Project - Housing and
Urban Environment).
In ancient times, in the area of modern Orsk, there was a
caravan trade route, known among the Bashkirs under the name "Kanifa
Road" ("Kanifa Yula"). According to the assumption of some scholars,
the medieval Bashkir city of Namjan, described by the Arab
geographer al-Idrisi (1100-1165), was located on the site of today's
Orsk. According to al-Idrisi, Namjan is a small prosperous trading
town, from where copper ore and furs were exported to the cities of
Central Asia and the shores of the Caspian Sea.
On October 10
(21), 1731, a significant part of the meeting of Kazakh elders
headed by Abulkhair Khan spoke in favor of adopting an act on the
voluntary annexation of the Younger Zhuz of Kazakhs to Russia. In
1734, Abulkhair Khan sent an embassy with the Russian diplomat
A.I.Tevkelev to the court of Empress Anna Ioannovna, headed by his
son Erali, who, on behalf of his father, undertook to protect the
security of the Russian borders adjacent to the lands of his horde,
to protect Russian merchant caravans when passing through the Kazakh
steppes, to give them, like the Bashkirs and Kalmyks, in case of
need an auxiliary army and pay yasak. As a reward for this,
Abulkhair Khan asked to approve the khan's succession to the throne
for eternal times in his family and build a city with a fortress on
the Or river, where he could find refuge for himself in case of
danger. Orsk was founded on August 15 (26), 1735 by the Orenburg
expedition led by Ivan Kirillovich Kirilov as a fortress near Mount
Preobrazhenskaya on the left bank of the Yaik River (Ural) at the
confluence of the Or River, which originates in the Aktobe region of
Kazakhstan. Hydronym Or has a Turkic-speaking origin (compare the
Bashkir ur / үr, Kazakh or - "ditch", Kirghiz or - "pit", "ditch").
The city of Bashkirs and Kazakhs is called Yaman-kala / Zhamangala
(Bad city). The area was the nomadic nomad of the Zhetyru Kazakhs. A
citadel was built on Mount Preobrazhenskaya, and a wooden church of
St. Andrew the First-Called at the mountain.
The original
name of the settlement is Orenburg; it was intended to protect
against nomads and was fortified. Its construction marked the
beginning of the emergence of the border military line along the
Yaik and became one of the main reasons for the Bashkir uprising of
1735-1740. During the Bashkir uprisings, government troops were
stationed here and the executions of the insurgent Bashkirs were
carried out. In 1741 the fortress was renamed Orskaya; at the same
time, Orenburg itself was moved downstream of the Yaik (Ural). In
1738, half a verst (about 500 m) from the Orsk fortress, the new
head of the Orenburg expedition, VN Tatishchev, built an exchange
yard; customs duties from trade with Kazakhstan and Asia in 1745
amounted to 6893 rubles.
In 1749, after a severe flood, the
church was moved to the removed top of Mount Preobrazhenskaya, which
was named the Transfiguration of the Lord. In 1751 the church
received its first parishioners.
On April 30 (May 11), 1782,
the Orsk district was formed as part of the Orenburg region of the
Ufa governorship. On December 12 (23), 1796, the county became part
of the Orenburg province.
Many famous people visited the Orsk
fortress and later in Orsk: astronomer Christopher Euler, son of the
famous mathematician Leonard Euler, who, on the instructions of the
St. before the disk of the Sun; On July 13 (24), 1769, a German
traveler and Russian academician P. S. Pallas was in the Orsk
fortress; in 1829 the German scientist Alexander Humboldt. In 1837,
while traveling across Russia, the Orsk fortress was visited by
Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich (the future Tsar Alexander II). The
great Russian poet V.A.Zhukovsky also traveled with him, who in his
diary left a drawing of a half-stone church on Mount
Preobrazhenskaya. From June 22 (July 4), 1847 to May 11 (23), 1848,
the Ukrainian poet and artist Taras Shevchenko was in exile in the
Orsk fortress. In 1891, the city was visited by Tsarevich Nikolai
Alexandrovich Romanov (future Tsar Nicholas II).
In the
1840s, in the center of the old fortress, on the site of the
original wooden church of St. Andrew the First-Called, another
Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior was built. She is
mentioned by T.G. Shevchenko. The construction of the church was
completed in 1852.
In 1861 the fortress was abolished and
transformed into the village of the Orenburg Cossack army.
In
1865, Orsk acquired the status of a city and center of the Orsk
district of the Orenburg province (until 1920).
In 1866,
there were 435 households in the county town, and the population was
3,088, including 1,679 males and 1,409 females. The city had: one
Orthodox church, one mosque, a village Cossack school, a Mohammedan
school (madrasah), 2 post stations (linear and steppe) and seven
factories.
Intensive development of the city began in the 1870s. The
population was engaged in the trade in cattle and grain, the
processing of agricultural products, and crafts. Many women were
engaged in knitting the famous Orenburg downy shawls and openwork
spider webs. The active development of the city's economy was
facilitated by the opening of the Turgai - Orsk freight route in
1881. Four years later, there were already about 20 small factories,
plants and manufactories in Orsk. In 1888 the Orsk women's community
with a girls' school was established.
By January 1 (13),
1896, Orsk had 897 households and 12,880 residents (of whom 6083
were women), including 8,910 Orthodox Christians, 122 schismatics,
13 Catholics, 10 Protestants, 24 Jews, 3,767 Mohammedans and 34
representatives of other faiths. ... There were 116 noblemen, 25
clergymen, 102 honorary citizens and merchants, 7965 bourgeois
citizens, 2110 people of the military class, 2474 peasants, 88
citizens of other classes. The city had: two Orthodox churches, a
parish school, district school, mosque, exchange yard; 26 small
factories, producing only 226 thousand rubles, with 190 workers; the
main industries are sallow and tanning (for 56,400 rubles); hospital
(24 beds), doctor and 5 paramedics. City revenues as of 1895 were
29,250 rubles, expenses - 29,146 rubles, including for public
administration - 4612 rubles, for public education - 3875 rubles,
for the medical department - 1563 rubles. Orsk uyezd was one of the
fertile and very suitable for cattle breeding, but it was
predominantly cattle-breeding and timber industry, while arable
farming occupied only the third place among agricultural
occupations. Peasants, Cossacks and Bashkirs were the predominant
landowning element in the district; of the total land area
(3,755,086 dessiatines, or more than 4.1 million hectares), they
owned 72%. This was followed by military lands - 20%, private - 4%,
state-owned - 1%, other institutions (spiritual, charitable, etc.) -
3%. By January 1, 1896, 207,436 people (103,021 men and 104,415
women) lived in the district, including Orthodox Christians -
78,997, schismatics - 1120, Mohammedans - 127,173, persons of other
confessions - 146. Handicraft trades and crafts were engaged in 16
613 people; the predominant handicraft was knitting of down
products, which employed 6246 people. 3200 people were engaged in
gardening, 3413 people were engaged in felling, racing and wood
dressing. In the county, there were 118 fat and oil mills, with 163
workers and with a total production of 1 million rubles; 1 doctor, 9
paramedics and 2 midwives worked in the health sector.
In
1880, a wooden Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk church was built, in 1916 - a
stone one. Both churches were on the site of the current Malishevsky
garden. In 1890, the wooden Paraskevinsky Church of the Intercession
Women's Community was built (since 1898, a monastery). A stone
Pokrovskaya church was built nearby in 1908. Since 1894, on the
Preobrazhenskaya mountain, on the site of the half-stone church that
burned down in 1888, a new Nikolskaya church has been built
according to the project of the St. Petersburg architect M.A.
Shchurupov. Built in 1903.
At the beginning of the 20th
century, the M.E.Smirnov's candy factory, the shops of the
V.I.Nazarov distillery, and a cinema appeared in the city. In the
Orsk district, the gold mining industry was actively developing. In
1913, the construction of the Orsk station building began, almost
simultaneously with the construction of the railway from Orenburg to
Orsk. In 1916, the construction of the station was largely
completed. Captive Germans and Slovaks were involved in design and
construction work. The building was made in the style of German
classicism. The revolution and the general devastation in the
country prevented the completion of the work (to complete the
construction of the tracks to the station). Thirteen years later, in
February 1929, when a railway bridge was built across the Ural
River, the station opened. In 1913, the city's population was over
21 thousand people. By 1917 there were 11 churches (6 of them are
Orthodox) and mosques, 16 schools of various types and levels. In
1918-1919, during the civil war, the city withstood a three-month
siege, then four times was captured by the warring parties.
In the 1930s, on the right bank of the Urals, construction began on
large industrial enterprises operating on the basis of rich mineral
deposits discovered in this region. In 1931-1935 a meat-packing
plant was built, on January 6, 1936 the Orsk oil refinery produced
the first gasoline. In November 1938, Orsk CHPP-1 began to operate.
In just four years, a giant of non-ferrous metallurgy, the
Yuzhuralnickel plant, was built. In December 1938, the first
semi-finished product containing 20% nickel was produced. Produced
the purest electrolytic nickel in Russia, sulphate cobalt, metal
cobalt, nickel in sulphate, closed in 2012.
According to the 1939 census, 66,300 inhabitants lived in the
city.
During the Great Patriotic War, 28 enterprises and
institutions were evacuated to Orsk. During the war, 8 hospitals
operated in the city; the largest was located in school number 49,
accommodating up to 600 wounded.
In the first two years of
the war, tens of thousands of people arrived in Orsk (during the
same period, thousands of German special settlers were exiled to the
city), many of whom remained to live here. In the spring of 1942,
the city experienced a major flood. During the war years, the city's
population grew to 131 thousand. People had to re-establish their
everyday life in the most difficult conditions. Lightweight
buildings began to be erected in the city. By 1945, 59 percent of
housing was dugouts, barracks, and adobe houses.
In 1945, the
city's enterprises produced as many different products as in 1913
the entire Urals produced. More than 22 thousand townspeople
received orders and medals for their selfless work.
On
January 22, 1971, Orsk was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of
Labor by the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces for
the successes achieved in the implementation of the 8th five-year
plan for the development of industrial production.
Orsky State Drama Theater named after A. S. Pushkin. The
administrative center of cultural life not only of the city, but of the
entire Eastern Orenburg region; local history museum, archaeological
research laboratory, children's art gallery, art houses, libraries, Orsk
KVN League.
Municipal brass band. Founded in 1995. Artistic
director and chief conductor Oleg Komarin. Not a single significant
event in the city is complete without an orchestra.
An exemplary
children's brass band at the MAU DO TsRTYU "Joy" since 1993. Multiple
Laureate and Grand Prix winner of All-Russian and International
competitions. Head of Excellence in Public Education, Honored Teacher of
the Russian Federation Alexey Vasilievich Fedosov.
Exemplary
children's pop orchestra. Laureate of International competitions.
Theater-studio "VSTRECHA" was founded on May 20, 1989, located in
the building of the Palace of Pioneers and Schoolchildren. The founder
and director of the exemplary institution of additional education is
Yuri Petrovich Panov (passed away on May 20, 2016), laureate of the
Orenburg Komsomol Prize named after Musa Jalil, laureate of the I, II
and III All-Union Folk Art Festivals.
In 1969, the College of
Arts opened in Orsk.
In 1990, Orsk received the status of a
historical city - 62 architectural monuments, 28 historical monuments.
These include: the historical center of the city (buildings 1870-1917);
urban complex "Sotsgorod" ("New City"), this part of the city was
conceived as a system of industrial and residential complexes based on
innovative urban planning ideas, as a future garden city, by a group of
German architects under the leadership of Hans Schmidt. In terms of the
complexity of its planning structure, Orsk has no analogues in the
Urals.
One of the features of industrial Orsk is the presence on
its territory of more than 40 archaeological monuments: settlements,
burial mounds, single mounds. Those that have already been studied are
widely known in the scientific world. Thus, with the discovery of Bronze
Age burials in the Kumak burial ground, the hypothesis about the
localization of the Indo-European ancestral home in the steppes of
Eastern Europe received significant support.
In the mounds of the
early Iron Age (VI-VII centuries BC), left by the nomadic “Sauromatian”,
Sarmatian tribes, Achaemenid items were discovered: a rhyton, a torc, a
seal, an Egyptian vessel with the name of the Persian king Artaxerxes I
(the sixth vessel in the world) .
Orsk pies have become one of
the cultural treasures of the Orchan people.