Ussuriysk, old names: the village of Nikolskoye (before 1898),
the city of Nikolsk-Ussuriysky (until 1935), Voroshilov (until 1957)
- a city in Russia, the administrative center of the Ussuriysky
urban district (until March 25, 2005 - a district) of Primorsky
Territory.
It is located on the Prikhanka plain, 80 km from
Vladivostok on the Komarovka and Rakovka rivers, in a hollow between
the hills. A distant part of the city (the village of a sugar plant
near Khenina Sopka) stands near the left bank of the Razdolnaya
River. The area of the urban district is 3,690 km².
Population - 173 640 people. (2020), the second largest city in
Primorsky Krai (after Vladivostok). Ussuriysk urban district - 199
341 people. (2020). Food production accounts for about 60% of the
city's industry.
It was founded in 1866 as the village of
Nikolskoye, which on April 3, 1898 was transformed into the city of
Nikolsk-Ussuriysky. In 1934-1943 it was the administrative center of
the Ussuriysk region. The city is considered by a number of authors
as a possible candidate for the role of the capital of Primorsky
Krai.
Ussuriysk is divided into a number of historical
districts, the clear boundaries of which are not defined: Central,
the region of Seven Winds, Zheleznodorozhnaya Slobodka (among the
people of Sloboda), Mezhdurechye, Voskhod, Sugar Factory Settlement
(sahposyolok), 5th kilometer, Dobropolye, Khenina Sopka and
Chernyakhovsky ( more often Kirzavod). The city also includes small
villages: Baranovskoye (with a landfill) and the village of
Mineralny.
City Day is usually celebrated on the second
Saturday in September.
Convenient geographical location,
climate and relief have constantly attracted people to the Khanka
lowland, in which the city of Ussuriysk is located. Paleolithic
settlements (40-10 thousand years BC) on Ilyushkina and Strelkovaya
hills were found directly within the city limits. Neolithic
settlements (7–5 thousand years BC) and settlements dating back to
the Bronze Age (5–4 thousand years BC) have not been found in the
city limits, but there are many of them in the vicinity of the city.
Settlements of the Iron Age (3–1.5 thousand years BC) were found on
the outskirts of the Baranovsky garrison and at a poultry farm, as
well as several dozen in the vicinity of the city.
In 698, on
the site of the future Ussuriisk, the medieval state of Bohai was
created, which included the southern regions of Primorye. In the
days of the Bohai state (VII-X centuries), the administrative center
of the province of Suibin-do, the city of Suibin, was located on the
site of the city of Ussuriysk, which was destroyed in 926 by the
Khitan. Before the fall of Suibin (in some transcriptions of
Shuaibin), it was famous for horses, and beyond the borders of the
state.
Later, this area became one of the centers of the
Chzhurzhen uprising against Khitan rule. After the victory of the
Jurren and the establishment of the Jin dynasty, the city of Suibing
(Chin. Shuaybin) was completely restored and greatly expanded, and
the province of Suibing-do was also restored, the area of which
increased.
Today in Ussuriysk there are the ruins of two
kremlins of this city, which are considered as the South Ussuriysk
and West Ussuriysk fortified settlements. The area of both
settlements is over 100 hectares. It was here in 1124 that Wanyan
Esykui, an associate of Aguda, the founder of the Jin Empire, moved.
On the neighboring Krasnoyarovskaya volcano there was a mountain
fortress Suybina, whose area was 37 hectares. This fortress Puxian
Wannu (the governor of the eastern provinces, who seceded from the
empire in 1215 and created the state of Eastern Xia) expanded to 180
hectares and made his Upper capital, which he called Kaiyuan.
Suibing and Kaiyuan were captured by the Mongols in 1233 and
destroyed. The remnants of the population were enslaved and
resettled in 1246 in the valley of the Liaohe River by the Mongol
Khan Guyuk.
The ruins of Suybin were mapped as the city of
Furdan by the French Jesuits Regis, Jartu and Fidelli, who made up
the "Kangxi Map" and worked on the territory of Primorye in 1709.
Later, the material was transferred to Jean Baptiste d'Anville, and
in 1734 the city of Furdan first appears on the European map, and
then on various maps this city was found until 1860.
Ussuriisk was founded in August 1866 as the village of
Nikolskoye (in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker) by 13
families who came to the settlement from the Astrakhan and Voronezh
provinces. The Ilyushenko family was from the Voronezh province. The
rest came from the Astrakhan villages of Akhtuba, Bolkhuny,
Kapustino, Cherny Yar, Krasny Yar and Enotaevsky district. On May 15
(28), 1868, the village was burned down during the "Manzov war". The
war revealed the important location of the village, and Governor
General Mikhail Korsakov in June ordered the restoration of the
village and the construction of a barracks to permanently house a
garrison as part of a company inside the ancient fortress. This is
how one of the largest garrisons of modern Primorye was born.
Already in 1870 the headquarters of the 3rd line battalion with two
companies was transferred here from Kamen-Rybolov. In 1871, the
first wooden church was built in the village. In 1880, the 3rd and
4th battalions of the newly formed 1st East Siberian Rifle Brigade
were deployed in the village. In 1881, residents of Nikolsky turned
to the authorities with a petition to transform the village into a
city. The first school - a parish school - was opened in 1883. Later
(1896) a brick building was added to it (in 1999, a city museum
began to be created on the basis of a brick extension). In 1893,
traffic was opened on the Ussuriyskaya railway between Vladivostok
and Nikolskoye. According to the 1897 census, 8982 people lived in
Nikolskoye (7007 males and 1975 females).
In accordance with
the Imperially approved regulation of the Committee of Ministers "On
the formation in the South Ussuriysk district of the Primorsky
region of the city under the name:" Nikolsk-Ussuriysky " the
settlement of the station Ketricevo and the settlement of Suifunsky
Later, the number of residents of the newly formed settlement was
replenished by immigrants from Ukraine, who massively moved to the
south of the Far Eastern region of the Russian Empire.
In April 1905, by order of the Governor-General
R.A.Khreschatitsky, 10 redoubts and other fortifications began to be
erected in the southern and eastern outskirts of the city to defend
the city from a possible Japanese attack.
One of the
correspondents Ivan Illich-Svitych described the city of Ussuriisk
in 1905 as follows:
This is a large Little Russian village.
The main and oldest street is Nikolskaya. Along the entire street,
on both sides, stretched white huts, in places and now still covered
with thatch. At the end of the city, at the confluence of Rakovka
with Suputinka, as is often the case in indigenous Ukraine, there is
a “headquarters”, near which the “mlynok” is picturesquely nestled,
so that it would be quite the picture in which the “old did” in one
song confuses the “young maiden "-" and rates, and a milny, and a
cherry garden ", if this last one was present. Among the Russian
population, not counting the Cossacks, Little Russians are so
predominant that the rural inhabitants of the city, the so-called
intelligent, calls it nothing else than "Ukrainians". And indeed,
among the Poltava, Chernigov, Kiev, Volyn and other Ukrainians,
immigrants from the Great Russian provinces are completely lost,
being, as it were, an inclusion in the main Little Russian element.
A bazaar on a trading day, for example, in Nikolsk-Ussuriysk, is
very reminiscent of some place in Ukraine; the same mass of
steep-horned oxen lazily chewing gum next to wagons filled with
sacks of flour, cereals, bacon, pork carcasses, etc .; the same
Ukrainian clothes in public. Everywhere you can hear a cheerful,
lively, lively Little Russian dialect, and on a hot summer day you
might think that you are somewhere in Mirgorod, Reshetilovka or
Sorochintsy of the times of Gogol.
In 1916, the South
Ussuriysk branch of the Amur Department of the Russian Geographical
Society was created in the city, which was headed by A.Z.Fyodorov
for many years.
In September 1917, the first Far Eastern
conference of the Bolsheviks was held in the city under the
leadership of A. Ya. Neibut.
On February 20, 1935, the city
was renamed Voroshilov in honor of the Soviet military leader Klim
Voroshilov. On November 29, 1957, the name of the city was changed
again, from that time it was called Ussuriysk.
Until the
1980s, Ussuriisk ranked second in terms of population in the
Primorsky Territory. Then he gave this place to Nakhodka, but today
he again became the second city of Primorye.