Meet Samara the City

Adapted from Wikipedia

Major city on the Volga – Samara is one of the largest cities in Russia. Situated on the Volga River in the southeastern part of European Russia, it is the capital of Samara Oblast. Its population in 2002 was slightly over a million, but more than 3 million live in the metropolitan area. Formerly a “closed city,” Samara is now a large and important social, political, economic, industrial and cultural center of European Russia.

The life of Samara's citizens has always connected with the Volga River, which has not only served as the main commercial route for Russia through many centuries, but also has great visual appeal. Samara's riverfront is one of the favorite recreation places of the locals and tourists. After Soviet novelist Vasily Aksyonov visited Samara, he remarked: "I am not sure where in the West one can find such a long and beautiful embankment—possibly only around Lake Geneva."

Samara is a leading industrial center in the Volga, known for the production of aerospace launch vehicles, satellites and various space services, engines and cable, aircraft and rolled aluminum, block-module power stations, refinery, chemical and cryogenic products, gas-pumping units, bearings of different sizes, drilling bits, automated electric equipment, airfield equipment, truck-mounted cranes, construction materials, chocolate, vodka, beer, food processing, and light industry products.

Founding & early history – According to legend, when Alexius, Metropolitan of Moscow, later patron saint of Samara, visited the site of the city in 1357, he predicted that a great town would arise and would never suffer destruction. The Volga quay of Samara appears on Italian maps of the 14th century, but officially the town started with a fortress built in 1586 at the confluence of the Volga and Samara rivers. This fortress was a frontier post protecting what was then the eastern boundaries of Russia from forays of nomads. A local customs office appeared in 1600.

As more and more ships pulled up to Samara quay, the town became the center of diplomatic and economic links between Russia and the East. Samara also opened its gates to peasant war rebels headed by Stepan Razin and Yemelyan Pugachyov, welcoming them with the traditional bread and salt.

Peter the Great and the tsars Alexander and Nicholas II visited the town. By 1780 Samara had become chief town of the Simbirsk Region ruled by the local Governor-General. Courts of justice and a board of treasury were established. On January 1, 1851, Samara became the capital of the province of Samara with an estimated population of 20,000. This stimulated development of the economic, political and cultural life of the community.

Rapid growth of the Samara economy from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries came from the bread trade and milling business. Samara Brewery came into being in the 1880s, as well Kenitser Macaroni Factory, Ironworks, Confectionery Factory and Match Factory. The town could boast of magnificent private residences and administrative buildings. By its rapid growth Samara resembled young, North American cities, and contemporaries have called the city "Russian New Orleans" and "Russian Chicago."

By the start of the 20th century, when the population of the town had reached more than 100,000, it was a major trade and industrial center of the Volga Area. During the Russian Revolution, Samara was seized by the Bolsheviks in 1917. However on 8 June 1918, with the armed support of the Czechoslovak Legion the town was taken by the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly. They organised a “Democratic Counter-revolution,” which at its height encompassed 12 million people. They fought under the Red Flag against the Bolsheviks. On 7 October, however, Samara fell to the Red Army.

Soviet period – 1921 was the year of severe hunger in Samara. In order to provide support to the people, F. Nansen (the famous Polar explorer), M.Andersen-Nexe (Danish writer), the Swedish Red Cross Mission, and officers of the APA from the United States came to Samara. Samara was renamed Kuybyshev in the honour of the Bolshevik leader Valerian Kuybyshev in 1935.

During the Second World War Kuybyshev was chosen to be the capital of the USSR if Moscow fell to the invading Germans. In October 1941, the Communist Party and governmental organizations, diplomatic missions of foreign countries, leading cultural establishments and their staff were evacuated to the city. A dug-out for Stalin known as Stalin's Bunker was constructed but never used. As a leading industrial center Kuybyshev played a major role in arming the USSR. From the very first war months the town supplied the front with aircraft, firearms and ammunition. The famous military parade of November 7, 1941 was held on the central square of the town. On March 5, 1942, Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony was first performed in the town’s Opera and Ballet House by the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra conducted by S. A. Samosud. The symphony was broadcast all over the world. Health centers and most of the hospital facilities were turned into base hospitals. Polish and Czechoslovak military units were formed on the territory of Volga Military District. Samara citizens fought at the front, many of them as volunteers. Kuybyshev remained the alternate capital of the Soviet Union until the summer of 1943 when everything was moved back to Moscow.

After the war the defense industry developed rapidly in Kuybyshev; existing facilities changed their profile and new factories were built leading to Kuybyshev becoming a closed city. In 1960 Kuybyshev became the missile shield center of the country. The launch vehicle Vostok, which delivered the first manned spaceship to the orbit, was built at Samara Progress Plant. Yury Gagarin, the first man who stepped into the space on 12 April 1961, took a rest in Kuybyshev after the landing. Kuybyshev enterprises played a leading role in development of domestic aviation and implementation of space programs.

Post-Soviet period – In January 1991, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, the city regained its traditional name of Samara. At the end of the 20th century, Samara was one of major industrial cities of Russia with powerful cultural potential, a multinational population, and a rich history.

Education – Samara is a major educational and scientific center of the Volga area. It has Nayanova University, as well as Samara State University, a prestigious higher-education institution in European Russia with competitive programs in Law, Sociology, and English Philology. Scientific research is also carried out in Samara. The Samara Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences incorporates the Samara branch of the Physical Institute, Theoretical Engineering Institute, and Image Processing Systems Institute.

Here are some photos of Samara.