Samara

Toponym "Samarha." (Samara) is present in the medieval Western European cartographic tradition. One of the first known mentions of this Scythian toponym can be considered "Chronicle." (Lat. Chronicon(1130/1131-1135) of Hugo of St. Victor. The 13th-century legend of the Ebstorf Map notes that the city "Samarha 〈...〉 in Scythia 〈...〉 is under the joint rule of [two] kings: one of them is a pagan and the other a Christian.". In this case, Scythia, as evidenced by another legend of this map, "extends from the farthest east to the Ocean, and in the South to the Caucasus Mountains.".

If we take into account the gap between the fixation of this or that situation and putting the information on the map, and this process takes on average 30-50 years, we can talk about the existence of the city already at the end of the XI century. And if we assume that the "Chronicle" of Hugo of Saint Victor had in its basis also a graphic protograph, then we come close to the middle of the 11th century, when Khazaria still existed. That is, the Ebstorf world map and the Verchel Tabula, as well as their protographs of the first half of the 12th century, which have not reached us, contain information from at least the first half, the 9th century, which refers to the history of Khazaria before the first period of Judaization of the ruling elite in 802/803.^.

On the basis of the above, it is possible to speak of the existence of the city of Samarha already about 802/803. However, such conclusions, drawn as a result of historical research based mainly on medieval sources, need to be confirmed by archaeological data, including underwater.

The city got its name from the Samara River. The foundation of Samarskiy Gorodok fortress in Samarskoye tract occurred in 1586 under the decree of Tsar Fedor Ioannovich on the bank of the Samara River near its inflow into the Volga under the leadership of Prince G. O. Zasekin and streletsy heads "comrade" (deputy governor) Elchaninov and Streshnev. The purpose of the fortress was to protect navigation on the Middle Volga and protect the state borders against raids from the steppe.

Prior to the construction of the Russian fortress at the mouth of the Samara River, the Moscow government negotiated with the Nogai Murza. To solve the issue of building a fortress peacefully, the authorities motivated the construction solely for the purpose of protecting the Nogai "from the thieves from the Cossacks".

The main purpose of the fortress was to control the vast territory of the middle course of the Volga and the mouth of the Samara, to conduct a systematic conquest of the land, cover Russia from the raids of nomads and provide a water route from Kazan to Astrakhan.

The fortress was built on the territory of today's Samara Valve Factory and to the south of it. It was built from May 9 to 6 (16) August 1586. The first residents were servicemen: Boyars' children, archers, cannon-bearers and collars, who were on guard duty, guarding the new fortress "from thieves." and from Nogai attacks. The fortress has not survived to this day (it burned down in the fires of 1690 and 1703).), but in 1986, in memory of the four hundredth anniversary of the city, on the corner of streets Vodnikov and Kutyakov were built a log cabin, conditionally imitating one of the towers of the Samara fortress and a piece of wall with a memorial plaque.

In the spring of 1646 was carried out the first census of Samara with the suburb, the only at that time - Boldirskaya - sloboda and with the county (there is information about the early formation around the city of Samara County with the estates of local nobles, and preceding censuses). Thus, the fortress of Samara had all the rights of the city since its foundation in 1586. In 1708, under Peter I Samara became the ninth city of the newly created Kazan province, and in 1719 was attributed to the Astrakhan. At that time there were 210 households in Samara.

In the XVII-XVIII centuries, Samara was in the center of two so-called peasant uprisings. In 1670, Samara was captured by the troops of Stepan Razin, and in 1773, Samara was the first city that defected to the side of Yemelyan Pugachev.

In the 1740s Samara became the center of accommodation of the Orenburg Expedition, which created the cities of Orenburg and Stavropol. One of its four leaders was V.N. Tatishchev. Between 1773 and 1780 Samara became a country town, and the center of the county became Stavropol, now Togliatti. In 1780 a county was created (during the district reform of Catherine II) headed by Samara, which became part of Simbirsk Province. Soon in Samara were opened district offices: town council, magistrate, treasury, guardianship of the nobility, district, zemstvo and orphans' courts. In 1782 the first general plan of the city was approved.

6 (18) December 1850 Emperor Nicholas I issued a decree to the Governing Senate on the establishment of Samara Province, whose center was Samara with a population of 15,000 inhabitants. By the end of the XIX century the population of Samara reached 90 thousand people, and by 1916 there were about 150 thousand people.

At that time Samara province ranked first in the Russian Empire by the amount of wheat harvested. Active trade in colonial, manufactured and other goods was carried out in 375 stalls. Bazaars were held weekly in two squares. Three large fairs were held throughout the year: Sobornaya (Autumn), Kazanskaya и Vozdvizhenskaya (summer), which lasted ten days, at the fairs traded mainly grain, bacon, wool, horses, leather, cattle, and camel's cloth.

In 1874 the construction of the Orenburg railroad began, which in 1877 passed through Samara. The Samara pier was recognized as one of the best on the Volga, and up to a thousand ships with various cargoes departed and arrived from it annually.

In 1915, an electric streetcar was launched.

The news of the February coup d'etat in Petrograd came to Samara 1 (14) March 1917. A meeting of the City Duma was convened to discuss the events. At it, the acting mayor V. P. Ushakov read a telegram from the chairman of the State Duma M. V. Rodzianko stating that a "special temporary city security committee" had been elected to work out urgent measures for maintaining order and peace in the city, which would be supplemented by representatives of various social organizations.

The news of the overthrow of the existing order quickly spread in the barracks, soldiers began to join the rallies of workers, employees, and students of the city, and after receiving Order No. 1 of the Petrograd Soviet, soldiers' committees began to be formed in the military units of the Samara garrison. The Soviet of Workers' Deputies facilitated the organization of the Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies. 7 (20) March 1917, their first joint meeting was held; the overwhelming majority in the Samara Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies at first belonged to the Esers and Mensheviks.

The October Revolution of 1917 took place in the city without a single shot being fired. The victory of Soviet power was announced from the stage of the circus-theater "Olympus" (now the Philharmonic Hall) by V. V. Kuibyshev.

In June 1918, Soviet power in the city was overthrown by the combined efforts of the city's insurgents and the Czechoslovak POW Corps of the Austro-Hungarian army. For 4 months, power passed to the KOMUCH, a committee of former members of the constituent assembly who sought to restore democracy in Russia. At this point a Russian republic was established from several provinces occupied by the Czechs, with Samara as its capital.

On October 7, 1918, Soviet power was restored as the Czechs retreated from the city and Red Army units under the command of Vasily Chapaev and Gaius Gaius.

In 1928 Samara became the center of the Middle Volga region. In 1929 the region was reorganized into the Srednevolzhskiy Region. From 27 January 1935 to 25 January 1991, the city was called Kuibyshev, in honor of the Soviet statesman and party figure V. V. Kuibyshev.

During the Great Patriotic War in July - October 1941 a number of enterprises from the western regions of the country and their personnel with their families were evacuated to the city (a significant part of enterprises and the population were placed on Bezymyanka). On October 15, 1941 by order of the State Defense Committee, the USSR Central Committee, the Supreme Soviet, diplomatic missions, major cultural institutions (for example, Bolshoi Theater, Mosfilm) were evacuated to the city from Moscow. On March 5, 1942 in the city was completed and the first performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Leningrad Symphony. A bunker was built for the Supreme Commander Stalin. However, the Supreme Command Headquarters, the State Defense Committee (the highest authority in the country), and the General Staff of the Red Army remained in Moscow. In 1941, the day of the Great October Socialist Revolution, 1st Soviet Marshal K. E. Voroshilov held a military parade on the main square of the city and a military review of the Red Army units before the battle of Moscow.

The level of industrial production increased 5.5 times by 1945 compared to 1940. During the war, the city's population grew by half (from 400,000 to 600,000 people).

The city made a significant contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany. It began production of weapons and ammunition. During the war Kuibyshev aircraft factories number 1 and number 18 produced about 28 thousand attack aircraft IL-2 and IL-10, about 80 % of their total number. During the days of defense of the Caucasus the city provided the army and the national economy with fuel.

Many foreign leaders came to the city, including French President Charles de Gaulle.

After the war, Kuibyshev became the largest industrial and cultural center of the USSR. Here a powerful potential of aviation (and since 1958 the space industry), machine building, metallurgy, electrical engineering, cable, oil refining and light industry was created. From 1960 to 1991 Kuibyshev was a city closed to foreigners.

The importance of Kuibyshev is evidenced by the fact that it was included among the 20 cities of the USSR subject to atomic bombing, according to the first postwar war plan against the USSR (Plan "Totality") developed in the United States in 1945, and was also included in subsequent similar plans.

All Soviet and Russian cosmonauts were launched into space aboard R-7 carrier rockets produced by Samara company "TsSKB-Progress" (including the first cosmonaut of the planet Gagarin on April 12, 1961; after landing near Engels they brought him to Kuibyshev, where he stayed for two days in the summer house of regional committee of CPSU, from where he reported by telephone to the head of state N.S.Khrushchev. Khrushchev about the successful fulfillment of the first manned space flight in the history of mankind).

In addition to the development of industry, there are positive changes in the socio-economic development of the city: a high rate of housing construction (the introduction of integrated neighborhood development), developing social institutions, building new roads.

On September 14, 1967, in Kuibyshev, the millionth resident, Natalia Belova, was born .By the end of the 1970s, the city's population had reached 1.2 million.

In 1986, the city reaches a maximum population of 1,267,000.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the course of perestroika and subsequent privatization had a strong impact on the development of the city. The tasks of conversion of military production had a negative impact on the economy of Kuibyshev, which at that time was a major military-industrial center of the country. As a result of the conversion, many large enterprises went bankrupt (4 GPZ, Maslennikov plant). On their premises, small productions sprang up, places of trade and cultural institutions (clubs, cinemas, bars, restaurants, etc.) appeared.. The loss of jobs and the slowdown of economic growth had a negative impact on the demographic situation and the state of infrastructure.

On January 25, 1991, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR the city was returned to its historical name Samara.

The economic crisis, which began in the Soviet years, intensified in 1998, at which time the military-industrial complex enterprises finally collapsed and failed to reorient themselves toward civilian production. The exceptions were a few, such enterprises as TsSKB Progress, Aviacor and others.

Since 2000, Samara has seen an active development of the construction segment. At the same time there was no overall strategy for the development of the city, which eventually led to obvious violations in the architectural style of the city, as well as significantly deteriorated the quality of infrastructure. The city is one of the nation's leaders in frozen civil engineering projects - in every district of the city there are dozens of unfinished or abandoned houses. At the same time, there is no policy on the part of the regional authorities to address this issue.

Nevertheless, despite the previous losses from the military-industrial complex conversion process, the city retains its leadership position in the region, mainly due to a number of oil and petrochemical enterprises. In September 2016 Samara was awarded the title "City of Labor and Military Glory.

In 2018, Samara became one of the host cities of the FIFA World Cup, the matches of which were held at the Samara Arena.