Krasnoiarsk

a city; administrative center of Krasnoiarsk Krai, RSFSR. Located on both banks of the Enisei, at its juncture with the Kacha. An important transportation center located at the point where the Trans-Siberian Railroad crosses the Enisei. Population, 688,000 (1972; 190,000 in 1939 and 412,000 in 1959).

Founded in 1628 as the Krasnyi military fort, the city was later named Krasnyi lar. Between 1695 and 1698 an antifeudal uprising took place in Krasnoiarsk. The city became the center of Enisei Province in 1822. In 1735 the Moscow Highway was extended through Krasnoiarsk. With the development of gold mining and the building of the Siberian Railroad, which reached Krasnoiarsk in 1895, the city began to grow rapidly. Until the October Revolution of 1917 political exiles, including some of the Decembrists and Social Democrats, were sent to the city. While he was in exile in the village of Shushenskoe, V. I. Lenin visited Krasnoiarsk, staying there from Mar. 4 to Apr. 30, 1897, and from Sept. 11 to Sept. 20, 1898.

At the turn of the century large railroad workshops employing many metalworkers were established in Krasnoiarsk. A committee of the RSDLP was organized in 1901. During the Revolution of 1905–07 an armed uprising broke out in the city, and the Krasnoiarsk Republic was formed. Soviet power was established in Krasnoiarsk on Oct. 28 (Nov. 10), 1917. From July 18, 1918, until early January 1920 the city was held by White Czechs and White Guards. But the workers of Krasnoiarsk, who had been organized by the Krasnoiarsk underground committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik), rose up against the White Guards on the night of Jan. 4, 1920. In January 1920 the city was liberated by forces of the 5th Detached Army (the Krasnoiarsk Operation of 1920).

Under Soviet power Krasnoiarsk has become the largest city in Eastern Siberia, its principal industrial center, and an important cultural center. Under the prewar five-year plans major industrial enterprises were built in the city, including the Sibtiazhmash Plant, a heavy-machine-building plant supplying equipment for the gold industry, the Krasnoiarsk Pulp and Paper Combine, and a shipyard. In 1938 the volume of industrial output was 18.7 times greater than in 1913. During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) a steam locomotive plant (from Bezhitsa) and agricultural machine-building plants (from Zaporozh’e and Liubertsy) were evacuated from the European USSR to Krasnoiarsk. Extensive construction of industrial, cultural, and residential facilities was continued in the postwar years.

The most important branches of industry are machine building and chemicals. In addition to those already mentioned, the city’s most outstanding plants produce machines for logging, combines, television sets, synthetic rubber, tires, industrial rubber goods, and chemical fibers. There is also a silk combine, a metallurgical plant (SibelektrostaF), and an aluminum plant. The building materials industry is well developed. Located near Krasnoiarsk on the Enisei River is the Krasnoiarsk Hydroelectric Power Plant.

There are more than 20 scientific research and design and planning institutes in Krasnoiarsk, including the Institute of Physics and the Institute of Forests and Timber of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Also located in the city are seven institutions of higher learning (a university and a polytechnic, as well as institutes specializing in nonferrous metals, technology, agriculture, pedagogy, and medicine), branches of the All-Union Institute of the Food-processing Industry and of the Irkutsk Institute of the National Economy, and 23 specialized secondary schools. There are drama, musical comedy, young people’s, and puppet theaters in Krasnoiarsk. Many of the city’s historical sites have been turned into museums: the V. I. Lenin House; the V. I. Lenin Memorial Museum (formerly the ludinskaia Library); P. A. Krasikov’s apartment, where Lenin stayed when he visited Krasnoiarsk; the steamship Sv. Nikolai, on which Lenin sailed from Krasnoiarsk to Shushenskoe, the town to which he had been exiled; and the home of the artist V. I. Surikov, who was born in Krasnoiarsk. In addition, the city has an art gallery, a museum of local lore, and a television center.

Krasnoiarsk is divided into two parts: the level right-bank section and the left-bank section, which is set on the high terraces of the Enisei and bounded on the north by a steep hill (Karaul’naia Mountain) and on the west by the forested Gremiachinskaia Ridge. The two parts are joined by a bridge more than 2 km long, which was built between 1956 and 1961. The left bank —the older section of the city—still has the regular layout of the 1828 city plan. The compositional hub of the right bank (master plans by lu. M. Kilovatov, 1949–50, and by A. G. Nikolaev, 1960) is Krasnoiarskii Rabochii Prospect, which is named after a newspaper. High-rise residential buildings line this street and prevail in the surrounding areas. In 1968 a 40,000-seat stadium was built in Krasnoiarsk (architect, V. V. Orekhov). There are monuments to V. I. Surikov (bronze and granite, 1954; sculptor, L. lu. Eidlin) and to Lenin (bronze and granite, 1970; sculptor, V. B. Pinchuk).

Located on the right bank of the Enisei near Krasnoiarsk is the Stolby Preserve with its remarkably fromed cliffs (stolby—columns).