Novosibirsk

The city was founded on the site of a large settlement of the Tatars. The first Russian settlement on the territory of modern Novosibirsk was Nikolsky pogost or village Krivoshchekovo.

April 30 (May 12) In 1893, the first batch of workers arrived to build housing for the workers who will arrive to build the bridge, this moment is considered the official birth date of Novosibirsk.

By 1896 the West Siberian Railroad had been completed to the Ob River, causing Bolshoye Krivoshchekovo to be partially destroyed. More than a hundred families and their homes were relocated to the opposite bank, founding the village of Krivoshchekovsky in 1891 (Atlas of Asiatic Russia, Petersburg 1916), and access roads and a station one verst away were built on the site of the demolished part of the village Krivoshchekovo (since 1960 - Novosibirsk-Western). In 1897 was opened to traffic built a railway bridge across the Ob River. The presence of the railroad and station infrastructure contributed to the influx of population in the resettlement village. Thus, within a few years, the number of its residents increased from 685 to 2,000.. Krivoshchekovskaya Sloboda included in the city of Novosibirsk only October 20, 1930, receiving the name Zaobsky district (Since 1934 - Kirovsky).

11 (24) May 1909 there was a terrible fire in Novo-Nikolayevsk. It lasted for several days. The fire destroyed 794 houses with all the household outbuildings, 22 city blocks were burned, more than 6 thousand people were left homeless (most of them were camped outdoors along the Kamenka River). Total damage caused by the fire amounted to more than 5 million rubles in gold. Following the fire a few days later an epidemic of typhoid and cholera broke out. Also in 1909 the railway station Ob was renamed Novonikolaevsk.

In 1912 the Novo-Nikolayevsk authorities officially introduced universal primary education (by that time universal primary education had been introduced only in Yaroslavl). In the same year an even more high-profile event takes place. The fact is that the fate of Novo-Nikolayevsk could have been similar to the fate of other station settlements, which similarly appeared at the intersection of the great rivers and the Trans-Siberian Railway, but chance intervened. It was decided in St. Petersburg to connect Siberia with Altai by railroad. There were different variants of a starting point, but Vladimir Zhernakov, the mayor of Novo-Nikolayevsk, for three years tried to convince the imperial committee on railroads that it was necessary to build a road to Semipalatinsk (the final point of the Altai branch) from Novo-Nikolayevsk station town. As a result 3 (16) June 1912 was the most important event for the future of Novosibirsk: Zhernakov's variant passed the highest approval, and Novo-Nikolayevsk at once became the largest multimodal hub in Russia - the southern transport beam automatically changed the status of all others, they turned into transnational. Since that time in Novo-Nikolayevsk an unprecedented economic boom began: in 1915, when construction of the railroad Novo-Nikolayevsk - Semipalatinsk was nearing completion, in the city with 70 thousand people seven banks were already operating. The symbol of that time was the Chapel of St. Nicholas, which in the same year was inaugurated on Nikolayevsky Prospect (now Red Avenue).

In 1915 the Novonikolaevsk II railway station was built (since 1960 - Novosibirsk-Yuzhny), Novonikolaevsk station is divided into Novonikolaevsk I-Passenger and Novonikolaevsk III-Tovarny stations.

In 1916 Novo-Nikolayevsk was chosen as the provincial city for the newly formed Altai province, which was supposed to be formed in 1917. The Provisional Government, however, then decided to make Barnaul the provincial city.

By 1914 the population of Novo-Nikolayevsk numbered 60,000, in 1915 - 75,000 people (excluding the variable composition of the cantoned troops). The town has: a private and railroad wharf with an 820-ton oil glacier, 8 religious institutions (5 Orthodox, 1 Catholic, 1 Old Believer church, 1 Jewish chapel), more than 40 educational institutions (including a real school, a female gymnasium, a four-class city Two-class railway and elementary schools), a printing house, 4 libraries, 4 hospitals, ambulatories, a treasury, 6 bank departments and 2 agencies of land banks (about 250 mln rubles turnover of banks), a stock exchange, plants (military drying, iron foundries of "Trud" and "Werman and Peters" companies, tanneries, soap manufactures, sawmills, etc.), etc.).

After the February Revolution elections to the City People's Assembly were held. At the same time, the Council of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies was formed. 14 (27) December 1917 an armed detachment, headed by one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks, A. Petukhov, arrived in the town hall - so power in the city went to the Soviets.

May 26, 1918 one of the units of the Czechoslovak Legion, which raised an armed mutiny on its way after the events of May 14-25, led by Captain Gayda, overthrew Soviet power in Novo-Nikolayevsk, capturing the city as a result of an unexpected military operation with the participation of officers of the local anti-Bolshevik underground. At the same time in Tomsk the population overthrew the provincial Bolshevik Council and announced the formation of an autonomous republic - the Siberian region in the territory of Tomsk, Altai, Omsk and Yenisei provinces, with the anti-monarchist university intelligentsia presided over by Grigory Potanin. On May 28, Colonel A. N. Grishin-Almazov arrived in Novo-Nikolaevsk and announced his assumption of command of the troops of the West Siberian Military District of the Autonomous Siberian Republic. By the military administration of Novo-Nikolayevsk the leaders of the Bolshevik City Council (Fyodor Gorban, Fyodor Serebrennikov, Dmitry Polkovnikov, Alexander Petukhov and others) were shot without trial and secretly buried on June 4, 1918. The terror was directed against the Soviet power and its sympathizers workers, peasants and employees. Arrests and shootings took place every day in accordance with the lists prepared in advance by the agents. The terror continued until December of 1919 and was remembered by particular atrocities on the part of the White Guards. Grishin-Almazov demanded from his subordinates to be proactive and ruthless in the fight against the enemies. June 30, 1918 the West Siberian Commissariat handed its power to the Provisional Siberian government, formed from the regionalists, led by P. V. Vologodsky, who arrived from Tomsk and Harbin. After that the Provisional Government moved to Omsk, because Novo-Nikolayevsk continued to be controlled by Polish and Czech Legionnaires. Foreign troops also carried out regular punitive operations against the local population. For the most part, contemporaries were negative about the crimes of the Poles. In November 1919 Autonomous Siberia fell - in late autumn the troops of the 5th Army of the Red Army took Omsk, and a month later the troops of the Siberian armies from Barnaul to Tomsk actually laid down their arms: Tomsk and Novo-Nikolayevsk fell in the 20s of December 1919.

After the Civil War in the spring of 1920, a typhus and cholera epidemic raged in Novo-Nikolayevsk. The disease was brought in from the European part of the country by refugees. The population of the city in August 1919 was nearly 130 thousand people, and in 1920 already 67 thousand. The Soviet government created an Extraordinary Commission on Typhoid Control "Cheka-Typhoid". From Novonikolaevsk the diseases were spreading throughout the province. Public institutions, including the railroad, were not working properly, the population was starving. Visitors wandered around the city, who stayed here because of the downtime of the trains and asked for food and lodging.

In 1920, Prodrazverstka, going in harsh conditions in the villages of the grain-producing part of the southwestern Tomsk province, causes an anti-Bolshevik uprising of peasants "Sibirskaya Vandeya", which goes under the slogans of preservation of Soviet power and the socialist revolution, but without communists. In the rebellious areas communist cells were completely destroyed. About 150 people - members of the RCP(b) - and members of the people's militia of Kolyvan (the center of the uprising) were killed. The insurgents formed their own armed forces and partisan units. At that time there was no permanent Red Army garrison in Novonikolaevsk and the defense of the city was organized by members of the Cheka and the people's militia. Rebel units seized the Chik station near the city. Sibrevkom urgently evacuates all state and party institutions to Tomsk. Tomsk returned to the status of the capital of the province. From Novonikolaevsk and Tomsk against the rebels were put forward units of the Cheka and ChON (detachments of armed party members and active Komsomol members). The revolt was brutally suppressed. About 600 people were arrested, 250 active participants were sentenced to death.

To restore the most important transport hub, the leadership of the Central Executive Committee, through Sibrevkom June 13, 1921 decides after all to turn Novo-Nikolayevsk in the "new proletarian administrative and political center", on the territory of the Tomsk and Omsk provinces is formed Novonikolayevskaya province. Sibrevkom was again located here, all Siberian administrative structures of the RCP(b), including the editorial office of the newspaper "Soviet Siberia" were transferred here from Omsk. And then, on May 25, 1925, Sibrevkom carries out an administrative reform in Siberia, a new administrative structure - the Siberian territory (with the center in Novonikolaevsk/Novosibirsk) was created. The former Tomsk, Omsk, Novonikolaev, Altai, and Yenisei provinces, as well as the Oirot Autonomous Oblast, were included.

Soviet power in Novo-Nikolayevsk was established in late January 1918, and then first started talking about renaming the city. After the restoration of Soviet power in December 1919, the question began to be discussed again, and many variants were proposed. In December 1925 the first regional congress of Soviets of Siberia decided on the new name of the city, and the newspaper "Soviet Siberia" on December 10, 1925 hurriedly wrote about the renaming Novonikolaevsk в Novosibirsk. As the city was officially called Novo-Nikolayevsk, the decree of the Central Executive Committee on the renaming of February 12, 1926, corrected the error - Novo-Nikolayevsk was renamed in Novo-Sibirsk. However, as in the former name of the city, the hyphen in the name Novo-Sibirsk did not take root in society and was not used.

In the rank of administrative center of the world's largest administrative-territorial unit Novosibirsk begins to develop again. The city gets the nickname "Siberian Chicago" - with the light hand of the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, Academician Anatoly Lunacharsky, who visited Novosibirsk in the late 1920s and so wrote down his impressions of his visit to the city:

"If five years ago Novosibirsk was still a half-village, today it is an original city that has grown into a capital of two hundred thousand people, rushing unstoppably forward, like a real Siberian Chicago..

In 1930, Krivoshchekovskaya Sloboda was renamed Zaobsky district and for the first time was included in the territory of the city of Novosibirsk, which until then was located exclusively on the right side of the Ob. On July 30 of the same year by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee from the 14 districts of the Siberian region and Oirot Autonomous Region was formed West Siberian region, with its center in Novosibirsk.

In 1934, the construction of the Palace of Science and Culture (now the Opera and Ballet Theater) saw the completion of the dome designed by Moscow engineer B. F. Mathery. Leaning on supporting reinforced concrete ring, which in turn rests on the columns standing in a circle, the dome was created as a unique monolithic reinforced concrete structure with a diameter of 55.5 m and a wall thickness of 8 cm. The ratio of the thickness of the shell of a chicken egg to its diameter is 1/250, and with the brainchild of Matheri the figure was 1/750. The building of the Opera House becomes a symbol of modern Novosibirsk.

In 1936 the then largest enterprise of Novosibirsk plant "Sibmashstroy", which produced flax-cutters and pumps of "Komsomolets" type, changed its profile, director and name. It was transformed into "enterprise of aviation industry # 153", thus becoming a plant for the production of fighter aircraft. The fact is that the plant was created for mass production of only one model of designer Nikolai Polikarpov - the I-16, which is now considered the world's first serial high-speed lowplane with retractable landing gear.

The plant, which in 1939 received the right to be called after Valery Chkalov (the I-16 was called "Chkalov's airplane" because Chkalov himself tested it and defended it before Stalin as the founder of a new type of combat aviation), during the Great Patriotic War became one of the main suppliers of fighter aircraft. In 1944 from Novosibirsk to the frontline went to 17 fighters a day, although more than half of the workers at the Chkalovsky plant were 12-14-year-old boys from suburban villages. They toiled under severe discipline for 700 grams of bread a day - such is the price of the motto "Regiment per day", with which Novosibirsk entered the history of World War II.

On September 28, 1937 the Central Executive Committee of the USSR approved a resolution of the Central Executive Committee on the division of the West Siberian region into the Novosibirsk region with its center in Novosibirsk and the Altai region with its center in Barnaul. Subsequently, from the Novosibirsk region were separated Kemerovo (January 26, 1943) and Tomsk region (August 13, 1944).

From August 21, 1943 to June 3, 1958 Novosibirsk was an independent administrative and economic center with its own special budget and belonged to the category of cities of republican subordination of the RSFSR.

September 25, 1948 on the northern outskirts of Novosibirsk there was founded a secret plant for the production of uranium products, which was called Enterprise ¹ 80 or Chemical Concentrates Plant. The area adjacent to it was called Sotsgorodok according to the then terminology because of the special supply regime and special attitude of the authorities to it (L. Beria supervised the project). In 1951, the 80th "box" started producing uranium, which at first was smelted by open-pit method.

The idea of establishing the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk was realized in 1957, after the country's leader Nikita Khrushchev approved the plan of three major Soviet scientists: Mikhail Lavrentyev, the "father" of anti-tank shaped shells, mathematician Sergei Sobolev, and mechanical physicist Sergei Khristianovich. On the outskirts of Novosibirsk, according to the idea of these scientific figures, the Akademgorodok was erected.

The evacuated population affected not only the development of science and art, but also the overall demographic situation - on September 2, 1962 in Novosibirsk was officially registered millionth resident.

In the 1960s, the West Siberian Railway under the leadership of its first chief, Nikolsky, underwent a technological upgrade, many elements of which were revolutionary in nature. Steam locomotives were replaced by diesel locomotives and electric locomotives, and a modern system of passenger rail service was born.

In 1969, the local zoo, organized in 1947, was headed by veterinary paramedic Rostislav Shilo.

In August 1972, Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, visited Novosibirsk. In a conversation with him, the first secretary of the Novosibirsk Regional Committee of the Party Fyodor Goryachev managed to prove the need for rapid construction of the Novosibirsk subway - the first in Siberia. During the design of the future building chief engineer S. V. Tsygankov and engineer K. P. Vinogradov proposed a bridge crossing over the Ob river on 14 piers - thus the longest subway in the world was born.. December 28, 1985 Novosibirsk subway was adopted by the State Commission, and on January 7, 1986 the subway officially opened its doors to passengers.

On September 26, 1976 a former pilot, who stole an An-2 plane from Novosibirsk-Severny airfield, rammed it into a five-story apartment building on Stepnaya Street, 43/1. Eleven people were killed..

April 28, 1982 published a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR awarding Novosibirsk Order of Lenin, and in February 1990 Novosibirsk was awarded the status of the historic city as a center of science and culture of Siberia.

April 6, 1987 established the annual holiday - Day of the city of Novosibirsk. The very first City Day Novosibirsk celebrated on October 4, 1987. This day was the coldest in the history of the holiday - the temperature dropped to zero and the first snow fell. The next year the holiday was moved to June. Since 1995, City Day is officially celebrated on the last Sunday in June.

In 1993, Vitaly Mukha, the first governor (head of administration) of the Novosibirsk region, was removed from office by presidential decree for refusing to support his actions in dispersing the Russian Supreme Soviet. Like nearby cities, Novosibirsk was in the Siberian "red belt" in the mid-1990s.

On May 13, 2000 by President Vladimir Putin's decree, the Siberian Federal District was formed with Novosibirsk as its center.

In 2015 Novosibirsk was awarded the honorary title "City of Military and Labor Glory.

July 2, 2020 Novosibirsk was awarded the honorary title "City of Labor Valor.