In the spring of 1948, on the ancient Orenburg tract, near the village of Bolshaya Allaguvat, 15 kilometers from the city of oilmen Ishimbay and 40 kilometers from the second largest city of the republic Sterlitamak, the first peg was driven by surveyors. A new city was being built here. In the maverick steppe, where herds of horses grazed, where among the countless lakes and swamps the local population hunted game, a barracks-type settlement appeared. For more than a year, Novostroyka, as the village was called, remained nameless. In 1949, at the request of the Executive Committee of the Ishimbay City Council of Deputies, the village was called Salavat after the name of the Bashkir national hero Salavat Yulaev, an associate of Emelyan Pugachev in the Peasant War of 1773-1775. The first chairman of the Salavat settlement council was elected S. Sh. Subhangulov, the first deputy - 3. V. Vasina. The plan for the restoration and development of the national economy for 1946-1950 provided for a significant increase in oil production and refining in Bashkortostan, which at the beginning of the war became known as the “Second Baku” and occupied the third place in the former Soviet Union in terms of black gold production. By the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of March 30, 1948, a program was defined for the creation of the town-forming enterprise Salavat - petrochemical plant No. 18. The design task for the construction of the enterprise was entrusted to the Lengiprogaz Institute. In the same year, the first survey work was carried out, and on the territory of the future industrial site, a horse park began to be laid, then a motor depot, a checkpoint, a base for storing light and heavy equipment. The first residential quarters and a collective farm market in the village were designed.
In 1949, the construction of subsidiary enterprises for construction and installation organizations and the plant began.
In 1951, the first workshops of the repair and mechanical plant were commissioned, which was later transformed into a machine-building plant. Now it is the state enterprise "Sapavatneftemash".
In 1952, the first boiler at the Salavat CHPP was commissioned, in August 1954 - the first industrial units of the catalyst factory of the plant.
In 1953, the Ministry of Petroleum Industry of the USSR decided to build a joint industrial site with the plant Novo-Ishimbaysky oil refinery, which later became part of it.
As soon as possible, a catalyst factory, an oil refinery, facilities for large-scale production of ammonia, sulfuric acid, polyethylene, polystyrene, synthetic alcohols, detergents, mineral fertilizers came into operation. The small village grew into a large industrial city. In June 1954, the first city party conference was held, at which V. N. Yakimov was elected secretary of the city committee, the city Council of Deputies was headed by R. G. Ishmukhametov.
The development of industry and population growth set the city authorities the task of maintaining law and order. The City Department of Internal Affairs (GVD) – now the Department of Internal Affairs – is as old as the city. The first head of the city militia was A. G. Akhtyamov, who arrived from Baimak. Sterlitamak, Meleuz, Ishimbay, Tuimazy, Ufa, neighboring agricultural areas shared their footage with young Salavat. In 1994, Militia Colonel M. A. Balovnev was appointed head of the Salavatsky Internal Affairs Department.
Currently, the management has 28 operating services, which have a fleet of vehicles. The working group of police assistance created under the management takes an active part in solving crimes and maintaining a peaceful situation in the city. Police officers often had to act in extreme situations, as more than 25,000 prisoners were transferred to the construction of the petrochemical plant on Stalin’s orders. Most of them worked side by side with the builders on the construction of workshops of the plant and residential quarters. There are four penal colonies in Salavat.
At first, about 4-5 thousand people from all over the former Union came to Salavat annually and the same number left. At first, most of the first builders of Salavat lived in Ishimbay and in small villages adjacent to the new building.
Petrochemistry has largely determined the level and direction of development of the city's industry. Over the past 50 years, the leading petrochemical enterprise of the city, constantly expanding and modernizing, has gone from plant No. 18 to JSC Salavatnefteorgsintez, one of the largest enterprises in the republic for primary oil refining and production of various chemical products. The development of industry, the creation of new large and medium-sized enterprises in the city and in the south of Bashkortostan necessitated the construction in early 1948 of a new railway line of the Kuibyshevskaya Railway from Allaguvat station to Kumertau, Muraptalovo and Tulgan.
In March 1951, a railway came to the village of Salavat, and in 1953 a railway station and residential houses for railway workers began to be built. At the same time, access roads of the Salavat petrochemical plant with two in-plant stations - South and East - were laid.
In 1956, the city railway station was opened.
Today, Salavat is the third largest and largest city in the republic. It is part of the southern economic subzone of Bashkortostan. Created as a center of the chemical industry, the city occupies a favorable location due to favorable natural and climatic conditions, close proximity to industrially developed centers, in particular, to the Ishimbay oil fields and Sterlitamak chemical enterprises, with which it is closely connected due to the presence of transport communications. The Ufa-Tulgan railway and the Ufa-Orenburg motor road pass through the city. A developed network of highways with a hard surface connects the city with many rural areas of the republic. About 160,000 people live in Salavat. More than 60% of the population are immigrants from the nearest villages and villages, who came in due time to build the plant and the city. Salavat is a city of petrochemicals, machine builders, builders, workers in the production of optical devices and light industry goods.
The unity of decoration distinguishes Salavat from many other cities of the republic. The initial master plan of the village at different times was developed by Gorstroyproekt, then by the Leningrad Design Institute (now the Institute of LenNIIP Urban Planning). In the early 60s, three boulevards were taken for the compositional basis - Matrosov, Cosmonauts and Salavat Yulaev, facing the city-wide recreation area on the White River. The main axis of planning was the boulevard of astronauts. In the 70s, a lot of work was carried out in the city on the reconstruction of the old housing stock: the last houses of the barracks are demolished, temporary settlements of GATK-1, GATK-2, the village of a brick factory are eliminated, the appearance of Pervomaiskaya street is changing. In 1987-88, on the initiative of the chief architect of the city N. P. Zykin and the Institute of "LenNIIP Urban Planning" as the basis of the architectural and planning solution, projects for the detailed arrangement of the eastern part of the city were taken. The lack of territories for housing construction forced to resort to cutting down existing forest plantations. Under public pressure, the city leadership decided to preserve and transfer the plantings to the urban forest park zone regime, thereby excluding more than 200 hectares of land from urban development. The adjustment of the master plan entailed the development of a new project for detailed planning of the eastern part of the city and the revision of methods of flood protection in the floodplain part of the White River.
The clear planning structure of the city is based on a system of highways laid in the meridian and latitudinal directions. The central street of the city - a wide, green Lenin Street - begins with Lenin Square, where the main administrative, cultural and educational institutions, including the Salavat administration building, are located. This is the administrative and public center of the city. In addition to the main square converge streets Pervomayskaya, Gagarin, Dzerzhinsky and Prospekt Neftyaniki, each of which ends with one of the buildings that create an architectural ensemble of the square. These are the Palace of Culture of Petrochemists, the buildings of the city library and the Ural Hotel, residential buildings with shops located on the first floors.
City administration building
Until 1958, Salavat was built up mainly with two- and three-storey houses. To give the architectural appearance of the city greater expressiveness, public buildings were placed so that they were clearly visible from any distance. The first five-storey house of the large-panel housing plant was built in 1961, and since the 80s, multi-storey residential buildings have been erected in the city. Three brick “nine-story buildings” for the first time “grown up” along the boulevard of Cosmonauts, 12-storey buildings organically fit into the development of 5-storey houses on Kalinin Street and brought time dynamics to the appearance of the city. Successfully fit and give a peculiar flavor to the entire ensemble of urban development monuments and public buildings - theaters, houses of culture, museums. Bashkir State Drama Theatre, Palaces of Culture of Petrochemists and "Builder", cinemas "Rodina" and "October". The beautifully decorated facades of the city music school attract attention. The authors of the development were architect S. I. Sokolov and sculptor A. V. Savchenko.
Palace of Culture of Petrochemists
At the entrance to the city from the north side, a stele is installed to the national hero of the Bashkir people Salavat Yulaev. The stele, designed by the Leningrad sculptor A.V. Semchenko, became a symbol of the city.
Live and decorate the city parks, boulevards, squares, alleys, tastefully decorated flower gardens. Hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs planted in the desert steppe by builders and residents of the young city perform environmental and protective functions. The favorite place of rest of the Salavatians was the city shady park. On an area of 13.5 hectares there are various attractions for children and adults, pavilions and kiosks. The old bed of the White River is equipped with an artificial reservoir, where boating and catamarans on hot days give citizens real pleasure. There are many memorable places in the city. The boulevard is named after the national hero of the Bashkir people Salavat Yulaev, a monument was built in his honor in the oldest square of the city, founded in the fifties.
In the picturesque corners there are monuments to V. I. Lenin, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, A. S. Pushkin, busts to Heroes of the Soviet Union Alexander Matrosov and Oleg Koshev. In the center of the Cosmonauts Square stands a 33-meter obelisk of combat and labor glory.
The eternal flame burns in front of the monument-boat, installed on Salavat Yulaev Boulevard, in honor of the Black Sea sailors who gave their lives for the freedom of their country, and in honor of those killed on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War.
There are two streets in Salavat, named after the dead countrymen who fulfilled their international duty in Afghanistan: Bochkarev and Gubaidullin.
The city is distinguished by the complex nature of the development - the presence in it of fully landscaped microdistricts with all the necessary institutions of cultural, domestic and economic services, sports grounds and recreation areas, kindergartens and schools. Individual construction is actively underway.
On the eastern outskirts of Salavat, in a picturesque place on the banks of the Beloy River, a modern urban-type village Jelanny is being built. Already the name suggests that to live in such a village - the dream of many Salavatians: comfortable cottages with an attic have central and autonomous heating, at the disposal of tenants phone, garage, sauna, homestead in 10-14 acres. The village is gasified, equipped with all city networks, which are tied to the city system, and has modern flood protection. The customer of the development is OJSC Salavatnefteorgsintez, the author of the project is the Lithuanian-Austrian company Vol-Lad in collaboration with the architects of the city of Salavat and the Institute of Urban Planning of St. Petersburg. To date, 70 families of employees of the company celebrated a housewarming. The village is growing, and it is safe to predict that for such settlements the future.
