Kurgan is a city in the Russian Federation, the administrative center of the Kurgan region, a large industrial and cultural center of the Urals. The mound is located in the west of the Ishim Plain, on the left bank of the Tobol River (Obi Basin), 1973 km east of Moscow. Train hub, airport. Population: 310,911 (2021).
Modern Kurgan is the center of machine-building and chemical industry. Leading enterprises of the machine-building industry - "Kurganselmash", "Kurganmashzavod", "Kurganarmkhimmash", "Kurganpribor", "Korvet", plant "Specialevatorselmash", wheel tractor plant, bus plant, chemical engineering plant. The main enterprise of the chemical industry - "Synthesis". Light industry is represented by knitwear, clothing, shoe factories.
History
In 1662, on the site of the modern Kurgan, the Tyumen peasant Timofei Nevezhin founded a fortified settlement Tsarevo Gorodishche (Tsarev Kurgan, Kurgan settlement). The name is given by the mound located 6 versts from the settlement (ancient Sarmatian grave), which for its significant size was called Tsarev Kurgan. A difficult time for the residents of the settlement was the 1690s, when a new rival of Russian settlers appeared in the Trans-Ural steppes - Kyrgyz-Kaisaki (Kazakhs). In July 1691, the nomads burned the prison of the settlement, plundered it. In 1738, in connection with the construction of the Ishim line, the fortification was abolished, and the settlement was named Kurgan Sloboda, which in 1782 was transformed into the district city of Kurgan. In 1796, Governor-General Kashkin approved a plan for the development and development of Kurgan. The basis of the layout was two roads - to the north-east and north - to Yalutorovsk, to the west - to Chelyabinsk. The plan was strictly geometric, the city was divided into neighborhoods and streets, which were guided by the Tobol flow.
Since the middle of the 19th century, the city became the center of trade in agricultural and livestock products (bread, lard, meat, butter, leather). The industry was represented by enterprises processing agricultural raw materials. At the end of the 19th century, in connection with the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the rapid development of the city began. About 60 factories and factories were opened in Kurgan, gardening and tobacco farming developed in the vicinity. In 1905, a water turbine plant was launched in Kurgan, one of the first in Russia. In 1907, A.N. Balakshin created one of the largest Russian cooperatives - the Union of Siberian Oil Artels, which united more than a thousand small enterprises. During the Great Patriotic War, many industrial enterprises and the population evacuated from the western regions of the country were located in the city. Since 1943, Kurgan became the center of the Kurgan region.
Kurgan is a large scientific and educational center of the Trans-Urals. The city has a scientific center of rehabilitation traumatology and orthopedics named after academician Ilizarov. At the end of 1996, Kurgan University was established on the basis of machine-building and pedagogical institutes, which includes 11 faculties. In Kurgan there is a drama theater and puppet theater "Gulliver", a philharmonic.
Attractions
In the modern architectural appearance of the Kurgan preserved the influence of the regular plan adopted in the late 18th century. The number of architectural monuments is small, many of them were destroyed during the Soviet era. So, the parish Trinity Church, built in stone in the early 19th century and for a long time served as the only parish church of Kurgan and nearby villages, was closed in 1937, and in 1957, together with the bell tower was blown up. In its place is currently a monument to the underground girl of the Civil War Natasha Argentovskaya. Also destroyed was the Mother of God-Christmas Cathedral, known in the 19th century for its splendor, beauty of carved gilded iconostasis and icons. Alexandro-Nevskaya Church, originally conceived as a cemetery, has been preserved. It was built in the early 20th century, for a long time it housed a local history museum, returned to believers in the late 1980s.
In Kurgan, several monuments of civil architecture dating back to the 19th century have been preserved, mainly merchant and philistine one-storey and two-storey houses. Among them is the Duranov house built in the early 19th century. Stone and semi-stone houses in one and two floors began to be actively built after the severe fires of the 1860s, when two-thirds of the Kurgan burned out. Modern buildings are dominated by five-storey and nine-storey residential buildings.
The pre-revolutionary Kurgan was a city of exile, in different years the Decembrists N. V. Bassargin, F. M. Bashmakov, A. F. Briggen, V. K. Kyukhelbeker, V. N. Likharev, N. I. Laurer, M. A. Nazimov, M. M. Naryshkin, I. S. Povalo-Shveikovsky, A. E. Rosen, P. N. Svistunov lived here. The life of the Decembrists in Kurgan is told by the House-Museum of the Decembrists, located in the house of Naryshkin (at the beginning of the 19th century this house belonged to the Zemstvo repairman S. O. Mameev). Kurgan is the birthplace of the poet S. A. Vasiliev (his house-museum operates in the city). Among the city monuments, a memorial complex stands out to the soldiers-Kurgans who died in the Great Patriotic War.
The most significant archaeological monument of Kurgan is Tsarev Kurgan, near which the city was founded. For a long time there was a belief that the mound, located on the so-called Algin Yar (from the Tatar "algin" - "famous"), is the grave of the daughter of the Tatar Khan, for many years it attracted seekers of ancient treasures. In 1959-1960 Tsarev Kurgan was excavated by the Ural archaeologist K.V. Salnikov. The scientific report on field research is stored in the regional museum of local lore. From it it can be seen that the central burial belongs to the 3-4 centuries AD. Found grave inventory was scarce, archaeologists found that the first time the mound was robbed immediately after the burial of the leader of the Sarmatian tribe. The device of the grave with a hut-like conical overlap transmits the device of dwellings of the middle of the first millennium AD.
