Ulyanovsk

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Ulyanovsk


Federal subject	Ulyanovsk Oblast
Mayor	Sergey Yermakov, since 2004
Coordinates	54°19′N 48°22′E
Area	316.9 km²
Population	635,947; 19th largest city in Russia
Founded	1648
City since	1796
Time zone	UTC +3
Calling Code	7 8422
Ethnic structure	Russians (70%), Tatars, Chuvash, Mordva
Climate	Moderately continental; snow on the ground from late October to mid-April
Average temperature of June	+19°C
Average temperature of January	−12°C
Annual precipitation	400 mm
City Day	June 12
Sister city	Krefeld, Germany

For the Soviet aircraft carrier, see Soviet aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk.

Ulyanovsk (Russian: Улья́новск), formerly Simbirsk (Симби́рск), is a city on the Volga River in Russia, 893 km east from Moscow. Both Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Kerensky were born there. It is the administrative center of Ulyanovsk Oblast. Population: 635,947 (2002 Census).

A frontier fort of "Simbirsk" or "Sinbirsk" was originally built in 1648 on top of the hill on the Western bank of the Volga River, designed to protect the eastern edge of the growing Russian Empire from the nomadic Nogais and to establish a foothold in the area. Just 20 years after founding, this fort managed to withstand a month-long siege by Stenka Razin's forces (some 20,000 in number). As the eastern border of Russia was rapidly pushed into Siberia, Simbirsk soon lost its strategic status and started to grow as a provincial town. It was promoted to city status in 1796. The Holy Trinity Cathedral was built in the restrained Neoclassical style in 1827-41. The population of Simbirsk reached 26,000 by 1856; 43,000 by 1897. In 1924 the city was renamed "Ulyanovsk" in honor of its recently-deceased most famous son Vladimir Ulyanov, better known as Lenin.

Bridge across the Volga

A railway bridge across the Volga was built in 1912–1916 and two automobile lanes were added to it in 1953–1958, allowing for the city to expand on the Eastern bank of the river and turning it into a transportation hub. The Kuybyshev hydroelectric plant was built 200 km south of Ulyanovsk in 1955–1957, flooding significant territories north and south of Ulyanovsk and increasing the width of Volga by up to 25–35 km in some places, 3–6 km near Ulyanovsk. At the present time, the aging and congested Ulyanovsk bridge is the only bridge across the Volga river along the 400 km stretch from Kazan to Tolyatti. A second bridge has been under construction since the late 1980s, but it is still far from being complete. When finished, it will be one of the largest bridges in Europe, at 5.5 km.

During the Soviet period, Ulyanovsk lost much of its historical heritage. All traces of the original wooden fort are gone, as are all churches of old Simbirsk; only a few 19th century buildings remain in the city, most notably the houses where Lenin lived between 1870–1887. The Holy Trinity Cathedral was being rebuilt, but now the rebuilding is cancelled. Some famous residents of Ulyanovsk are also remembered, such as historian Nikolai Karamzin and writer Ivan Goncharov. A semi-serious massive campaign for renaming Ulyanovsk into "Oblomovsk", after Oblomov, a character of Goncharov's novel, took place in 2003.

Ulyanovsk is a significant industrial city. It is home to UAZ, a large automobile manufacturing plant, and Aviastar, an airplane plant that is best known as the manufacturer of the heavy aircraft An-124 "Ruslan", as well as a number of smaller factories.