Capital of South Urals – Chelyabinsk

The capital of South Urals is the city of Chelyabinsk. It is one of the few Russian cities with a population of one million or more, ranking ninth in the number of citizens.

The majority of the population is Russians (over 80%), and there are a lot of Tatars and Bashkirs in the city. One can meet people of over one hundred nationalities practicing different religions. Chelyabinsk features several Russian Orthodox churches, Muslim mosques, a synagogue, a Catholic church and a Protestant church.

The city covers an area of approximately 53,000 hectares. Chelyabinsk is half the size of Moscow and is comparable in area with Andorra. Even half the city would suffice to host Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco and Vatican.

Chelyabinsk lies on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains, 1919 km east from Moscow. From the north-west, the city is embraced by a beautiful pine wood. The city features a number of water bodies with the Miass River in downtown and Smolino, Pervoye, Sineglazovo lakes and Shershni reservoir on the outskirts looking like blue pearls. A total of 18% of the city area is taken by water.

Chelyabinsk is a major transportation hub linked with the entire Eurasian continent. It is served by Chelyabinsk International Airport, federal motorways M5, M36, M51 and the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Subway is under construction in the city, as well.

Why Camel on the Coat of Arms

Chelyabinsk first appeared on the map of Russia back in 1736 when Russian migrants began settling on these lands that belonged to Bashkirs. Initially, the city-to-be was an outlook fortress protecting trade routes from Trans-Urals to Orenburg region. The fortress was named after a local stow belonging to the Chelyabi family (the citizens still nickname their city Chelyaba). In Turkic languages the name stands for “holy, gifted by God”. Therefore, the fortress had no chance to remain commonplace.

In 1781, Chelyabinsk received the status of a district center, and in the early ХIХ century turned into a large industrial and commercial center. In commemoration of those years, Chelyabinsk has its coat of arms depicting a camel with a load of bags – it was the “desert ships” that brought numerous goods for sale to Chelyabinsk. The real fame, however, came to the city much later, in 1892, when a railway linked it with Moscow. Chelyabinsk, lying on the border of the Urals and Siberia, became a sort of a gateway to Siberia.

How the City Turned into Tank City

During the first Soviet years, the city was constantly increasing its industrial power. By the early 1930-es it had tractor, abrasive materials, ferroalloy, machine-building, and zinc plants. This power grew even more during World War II when the city’s population more than doubled with evacuation of plants from the west of the country.

The “immigrant” plants merged with local ones and created such industrial giants as the Chelyabinsk Forge-and-Press Plant, the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant (now Mechel), the Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant. Many of them supplied the military: for instance, Kolyuschenko Plant produced the legendary Katyushas, and the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ) – the famous T-34 tanks. Every fifth tank made by the country in the years of war left the ChTZ conveyor. It was the time when Chelyabinsk acquired its second, unofficial name of Tankograd (Tank City).

Education and Culture to Every Fancy

Over the past century, Chelyabinsk primarily developed as an industrial center, city of metallurgy and machine-building. Meanwhile, today it is also a major business, scientific and cultural center of South Urals.

The modern Chelyabinsk is one of the leaders in secondary education with two of the city schools, lyceums No. 31 and No. 11, rated in top ten in Russia. The regional center is home to over thirty universities and colleges. The largest are South Urals State University famous for engineer training, and Chelyabinsk State University where one can get an excellent classical education in the Humanities. The city also features a Teacher Training University, Medical Academy, Academy of Culture and Arts, Sports Academy, and some military colleges.

Chelyabinsk enjoys a vibrant cultural life with seven professional theaters (Drama, Opera, Puppet and others) awarded at numerous national and international festivals. One can always visit one of the numerous exhibitions. For the largest ones, go to the museum of regional studies, art gallery and exhibition hall of the Union of Artists. Sports Glory

The city is well into sports. It would not be an exaggeration to say that every other citizen is a fitness activist. Some names of local athletes are world-renowned.

Six-time Russian Weightlifting Champion Mikhail Koklyaev. Six-time Russian Road Cycling Champion, winner of two Tour de France stages Sergey Ivanov. World Champion, member of the National Volleyball Team Ekaterina Gamova. European Champion, two-time World Champion and Olympic Champion in Handball Valeriy Gopin. Two-time Torino Olympic Champion in Biathlon Svetlana Ishmuratova. And many others…

Since 1956, a total of 64 South Urals athletes participated in the Olympic Games as members of the National Team winning 22 gold, 9 silver and 16 bronze Olympic medals.

Chelyabinsk boasts a strong Ice Hockey program, one of the best in Russia. It gave the world the current Head Coach of the Russian National Team, multi-time World and European Champion, two-time Olympic Champion Vyacheslav Bykov, Stanley Cup winner Sergey Gonchar and a number of World Champions. One of them, Andrey Nazarov, heads the top Ice Hockey club of the city – Traktor.

Chelyabinsk features around 1800 sports facilities including a brand new 7500 capacity Traktor Ice Arena. There is a modern track-and-field complex named after the Sydney Olympics High Jump Champion Elena Elesina. Ural Lightning Ice Palace designed for Speed Skating is named after the famous Chelyabinsk citizen, six-time Olympic Speed Skating Champion Lydia Skoblikova. This venue will host the 2010 WSCC and WMDCC. It should be noted that Chelyabinsk has been awarded the right to host the European Judo Championships in 2012 – yet another sign of the city’s sports value.

Friends All Over

In the late XX – early XXI century, Chelyabinsk became sister city with its counterparts in other countries: Nottinghamshire (an English county), Columbia (South Carolina, USA), Ramlah (Israel) and Urumqi (China), as well as Russian cities of Kazan, Ufa, and Omsk.

This fall Chelyabinsk will celebrate its 274th anniversary. However, a couple of years ago, local architects made Chelyabinsk another 3500 older at once! Right in downtown, close to the Miass bank, they found an ancient settlement of the Bronze Age. Sometime in the past, it was home to non-migratory Indo-Iranian tribes that worshipped the fire and bred cattle.

Irina Gollay