Kolyvan, Novosibirsk Oblast

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Kolyvan (Russian: Колыва́нь) is an urban-type settlement in Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, situated on the Ob River forty kilometers to the north of Novosibirsk. Population: 10,947 (2002 Census); 10,589 (1989 Census).

The majority of the log houses in Kolyvan are over two hundred years old, making the settlement a historical monument in itself.

Until the 1890s, Kolyvan was the commercial center of the surrounding area. During the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the 1890s, there were plans to route the railroad through Kolyvan and Tomsk. However, Konstantin Yakovlevich Garin-Mikhailovsky, the engineer responsible for routing the railroad in the area, decided that a site at the village of Krivoshchekovo, some 40 km upstream from Kolyvan, would be much more suitable for bridge construction: that was the only spot within the area where both the river banks and river bed were of solid rock; besides, the Ob floodplain is the narrowest there as way. Despite the protests of Kolyvan and Tomsk merchants, Garin-Mikhailovsky's southern route was approved by Alexander III in 1892. The bridge was built at Krivoshchekovo; the the new city of Novo-Nikolayevsk (later renamed Novosibirsk) arose around the bridge, and eventually became Siberia's largest city, meanwhile Kolyvan stagnated.

Works by Kolyvan craftsmen are exhibited in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Local attractions include a museum of local history and a Russian Orthodox convent.

[edit] External links

• Petr Marsakov, "From the Early History of Novo-Nikolayevsk - Novosibirsk Gornitsa (magazine) , Novosibirsk, 1995, No. 3, p. 54-56.