Kurgan Region
// GENERAL INFORMATION
Kurgan Region is often called the gateway to Siberia. It is located southeast of the Urals on the southern part (Ishimskaya Steppe) of the West Siberian Plain (elevations up to 193 m) in the middle reaches of the Tobol River. Kurgan Region is one of the smallest regions in the Urals, extending 430 km from west to east and 290 km from north to south. It is larger than the Udmurt Republic, but has the smallest population of the regions in the Ural economic district (5.4% of the total population). The region has an area of only 71 500 km2, but a number of small European states could easily fit into it. It borders on Sverdlov Region in the north and northwest, Chelyabinsk Region in the west and southwest, Kazakhstan in the south and southeast, and Tyumen Region in the east and northeast.
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Kurgan Region is located in the forest, forest steppe, and steppe zones. It has a severe continental climate with long cold winters and warm summers with regular droughts. The average January temperature is -18 °C, and the average temperature in the warmest month (July) is +19 °C. Annual precipitation is about 400 mm. If you look at the map, it appears as though there are more lakes than dry land in Kurgan Region. This is almost the case. There are saline and freshwater lakes, medicinal lakes, and lakes poisoned by industrial effluents. There are also old stream channels and the Tobol River itself.
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There are about 1 100 000 people of more than 100 nationalities living in the region, and the population density is 15.5 people per km2. The overwhelming majority of the population is Russian (92%); the rest are Tatars, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, and other nationalities.
Kurgan Region is situated at the intersection of the Tran-Siberian Railway with transportation routes to the major centers of the European and Asian parts of the country, especially with the Urals. Its geographical location favors the development of extensive economic ties with regions of the Central and Southern Urals and Western Siberia and the use of metals from the Urals, oil and gas from Tyumen Region, and coal from Siberia and Kazakhstan.
The region is divided into 24 districts and includes two cities under regional jurisdiction [Kurgan (the regional center) and Shadrinsk (a city since 1737)]; seven cities under district jurisdiction [Dalmatovo (a city since 1947), Kataisk (founded in the mid-17th century; a city since 1944), Kurtamysh (a city since 1956), Makushino (a city since 1963), Petukhovo (a city since 1944), Shumikha (a city since 1944), and Shchuchye (a city since 1945)]; and six towns.
HISTORY
Kurgan Region was formed on February 6, 1943, just when the Soviet Army decisively defeated Hitler's forces near Stalingrad. However, the history of Transuralia (Zauralye) began much earlier when the first settlers built their small stockaded towns on the banks of the banks of the Tobol and Iset rivers. Decembrist and Polish exiles made substantial contributions to the development of culture and education in Zauralye.
Merchants and industrialists made the territory famous around the world for oil, grain, tallow, and various other goods. The cooperative movement was widespread at the beginning of the 20th century, and thanks to Trans-Ural oil manufacturers, Russia became the world's second-largest exporter of butter.
In this same period, the machinery of Kurgan factory owner and talented engineer A.N. Balakshin, founder of the famous Turbinka factory, was winning awards at international exhibitions. The St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (Sobor Sv. Aleksandra Nevskogo), a unique monument of Siberian architecture, had an entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Today, Kurgan Region is an important part of the Russian economy. Zauralye is a territory with well-developed agriculture, which produces more than 1500 kg of grain, 100 kg of meat, and 650 l of milk per capita. Zauralye industry produces more than 5000 different types of goods, and companies and organizations in the region have stable ties with 75 Russian regions, 11 CIS countries, and 37 other foreign countries. Active restructuring of the economy is underway, and the foundations of a market, as well as its legal and regulatory bases, are forming.
The first positive changes in many aspects of socioeconomic life in the region are starting to show.
On the one hand, the region is actively participating the development of the Russian economy and seeking agreements with other Russian regions; and on the other hand, it is entering international markets for goods and services.
Zauralye's location in the center of Russia on the border of Europe and Asia where trade routes intersect allows us to make a choice.
The founding date of the city of Kurgan has still not been established. However, the journal Science and Life (Nauka i zhizn), No. 6, 1978, with reference to the Complete Set of Laws of the Russian Empire (Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii) and the chronicles, gives 1553 as the date of first settlement. This date also appears in the encyclopedic dictionary of F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron published in 1896. According to the book Lists of Populated Areas of Tobolsk Province (Spiski naselennykh mest Tobolskoi gubernii) published in 1904, Kurgan was founded in 1633.
Many times during its history, the city was destroyed by nomads, burned to the ground, and rose again. Historical documents from the 1660s onward mention it repeatedly; according to the census of 1710, the settlement of Kurgan already had 71 households and a population of 456. Owing to its location on the edge of the southern Zauralye, it quickly turned into a fortress for defending the Russian lands from nomad raids. By the mid-18th century, the town had a triple line of fortifications with nearly 1000 soldiers and 28 cannons. The fortress garrison was the largest in the entire Tobol River region. With the development of the lands further south and east and construction of fortresses on the new boundary line, Kurgan lost its defensive significance and began expanding as an administrative and commercial center. It received city status by royal decree in 1782. By that time, it had a population of nearly 2000.
The tsarist regime also used the remote city as a place of exile, apparently from the time of Peter the Great. Academician I.B. Falk, who visited Kurgan in 1771, wrote that its northern part was separated from the southern part by a wooden wall and was known as the Swedish Settlement. Thirteen Decembrists spent their term of exile here over a period of 27 years, starting in 1830. The first train arrived in Kurgan from Chelyabinsk on October 4, 1893; and the first car, bought by factory owner A.N. Balakshin, appeared 20 years later. With the construction of a railway connecting Kurgan with central Russia, the city gained considerable economic importance, and industrial enterprises appeared. In this period, Kurgan also acquired a telephone and telegraph system (1887), printing trades (starting in 1884), a movie theater (1910), and electric street lighting (1914).
Kurgan became a regional center in 1943.
In 1982, the city was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, largely owing to the development of large industrial facilities, such as AO Kurganmashzavod (infantry combat vehicles), AK Avtobusny zavod (buses), AO Rusich (wheeled tractors), AKO Sintez (pharmaceuticals), AO Kurganstalmost (metal structures for road and railway bridges, including bridges across large rivers in Russia, the CIS, and other foreign countries), AK Korvet (oil and gas equipment), AO Kurgankhimmash, and Ikar (stop valves and equipment for the oil and gas industries and public utilities).
In 2001, the city observed the 30th anniversary of the G.A. Ilizarov Reconstructive Traumatology and Orthopedics Research Center. At the end of 1996 year, the President of Russia signed a decree establishing Kurgan State University on the basis of former engineering and teacher training institutes. The Maltsev Agricultural Academy and the military institute of the Federal Border Services of the Russian Federation also train specialists with higher education.
Before the October Revolution, Kurgan had a population of 40 000, 49 companies employing 6000 people, 7 doctors, 90 hospital beds, men's and women's gymnasia, and a public library with 187 members. Since then, the population has grown to nearly 400 000 in an area of more than 160 km2. There are 58 large industrial facilities and 36 building organizations.
NATURAL RESOURCES
The region's most important natural resource is fertile land. Agricultural land occupies more than 60% of its territory.
The main rivers are the Tobol (with the Iset, Miass, Tech, and Sinara rivers), Ui, Kurtamysh, and Yurgamysh. There are more than 2500 lakes, mainly in the eastern and southwestern parts of the region. One-quarter of them are mineralized, where the water and mud have medicinal properties. The largest lakes are Chernoe, Steklenei, and Donki, which are excellent bases for fish farming and fishing.
Forests cover 1.7 million hectares, or about one-fifth of the region. Wildlife is varied, with sizable populations of moose, roe deer, and wild boar; wolves, badgers, foxes, hares, and muskrats are widespread. Common birds include ducks, geese, gray partridge, and black grouse.
The region has numerous deposits of economic minerals, including building materials like clay and sand, mineral pigments, and, in some places, gypsum and limestone concretions; iron ore deposits (Glubochenskoe and Berezovskoe) in the southern part of the region; and small peat reserves.
The southern part of the region is a zone of boundless fields, while the central part is in the forest steppe, where tall-grass floodplains and birch and aspen copses alternate with grain fields. The forests have an abundance of berries such as wild rose hips, steppe cherries, currants, strawberries, stone berries, bird cherries, and blackberries, as well as a variety of mushrooms, including noble white mushrooms.
ECONOMY
Kurgan Region borders on the oil- and gas-bearing districts of Tyumen Region and is also close to similar districts in Tomsk Region. Large oil and gas pipelines pass through its territory, and Ural and Siberian oil refineries are fairly close. The main industrial centers are Kurgansk, and Shadrinsk.
The region does not have large economic mineral reserves; therefore, it has developed mainly on the basis of subindustries associated with processing of agricultural products and assembly and packaging of finished products. The food industry is well developed here, with meat-packing plants, mills, creameries, and powdered-milk factories.
Modern large-scale industry began developing during the Second World War, when 16 enterprises from western regions of the country were evacuated here in 1941-1942.
Other facilities subsequently grew up around them, e.g., a Woodworking and Road-Building Machine Plant, a Wheeled Tractor Plant (now AO Rusich), the Kataisky Pump Plant (Kataisky nasosny zavod), a car-component plant and Poligrafmash in Shadrinsk, a telephone plant, etc. After the war, plants that were large-scale even by Soviet standards were built here, including Kurganmashzavod, the Korvet association, Kurgankhimmash, a bus plant, and the Sintez combine.
As a result, industrial output equaled agricultural output by the 1970s, and Kurgan Region was transformed from an agrarian to an industrial-agrarian region. Kurganstalmost, construction industry plants, and a number of other facilities have been built in recent years. Today, industry accounts for 25% of the gross regional product.
The main industrial sectors are engineering and metalworking (47% of total output), the food (14.4%) and medical (8.3%) industries, power (23.0%), ferrous metallurgy (0.5%), the chemical and petrochemical industries (7.7%), the forest, woodworking, and pulp and paper industries (1.8%), building materials (3.0%), and light industry (1.7%).
Today, companies in Kurgan Region produce car trailers, logging machinery, mini-tractors, municipal construction machinery, wheeled tractors, water purifiers, oil and gas fittings, communication channel and remote control equipment, small milk tankers, and other products under a conversion program. Production of systems and equipment for children's dairy products has also been developed.
Products from the Zauralye region are popular in Russia and abroad. The BMP-3 infantry combat vehicle, widely known on the world market, is manufactured here, as well as high-quality antibiotics and insulin, bridge structures that have been used on the Moscow ring road and on a bridge over the Ob River in Barnaul, and pumps and fire extinguishers, which are exported to many countries around the world.
The production slump that occurred at the initial stage of development of a market economy has been replaced by a period of stabilization. Output is expanding, especially in the medical, flour and cereal, feed, and printing industries. Production of woodworking machinery, fire engines, industrial fittings, proprietary medicines, consumer goods, and plant products is also increasing.
AUTHORITIES
The Administration of Kurgan Region is the highest executive body.
The Kurgan Regional Duma is the highest legislative body.
TOURISM
Kurgan is not only interesting to residents of the city, but is also attractive to foreign tourists because of the exciting hunting. Kurgan Region abounds with every kind of game; however, the favorite game animals among foreign visitors are Siberian roe deer, moose, wolves, wild boar, lynx, raccoons, wood and black grouse, hares, foxes, wild ducks and geese, and other marshland game birds.
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