Ufa City

The city of Ufa - a large industrial, scientific and cultural centre of the country - is located in the East of Europe. Ufa is the capital of multiethnic semi-autonomous republic of Bashkortostan within the Russian Federation.

The city lies approximately 60 miles West of the ancient Ural Mountain ridges. Major industrial cities such as Samara, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg are located in the immediate vicinity of Ufa. The capital of Bashkortostan lies upon a peninsula of sorts, occupying an elevated plateau encompassed from the three sides by the Aghidel (the Belaya), the Ufa and the Dyoma rivers. As in the whole of the Urals, the climate here is continental, but somewhat milder than in Yekaterinburg and Perm. Winters are normally snowy and cold (average January temperature is 5 F) and summers are hot (up to 65 F in June).

The magnificent natural scenery of Ufa and its surroundings depends on the city's location in the forest and steppe zone and on the nearness of bigrivers. It is not surprising, therefore, that the beauty of the land was noticed by people of the ancient past. Archaeologists have discovered remains of the primitive man settlements on the site of the present-day city. Following the collapse of the Kazan Khanate, Bashkiria voluntarily joined the Muscovite Russian State, the Bashkirs approaching Tsar Ivan the Terrible with a request to construct a fortress to protect the land. In summer 1574, a detachment of Russian streltsi (privileged military corps) laid the foundation of a fortress on the high right bank of the Aghidel river. The small township, erected by the Russian Tsar warriors on a hill, had initially borne the name of the hill Tura-Tau. Later, when oaken palisading encircled the township, the locals used to call it "lmenkala", that is "A Townof Oak". Nearly simultaneously the fortress started to be called "Ufa", most probably, derived from ancient Turkish "ufak", meaning "small" or "little". The population of the town was mainly composed of the socalled "service class" - noblemen, streltsi, Cossacks, gunners. They usually settled in the posad - trading quarters outside the fortress walls, these quarters adjoining the fortress from the Sutoloka river side. It is exactly for this reason that one of the streets in Ufa is still called Posadskaya.

The number of inhabitants was growing (700 in the early half of the 17th century and 5,600 in 1718), the town limits were expanding, mostly along the roads, the main one being Kazan Road, connecting Ufa with Moscow via Kazan. Bolshaya Kazanskaya was the main street of the town at that time (presently Oktyabrskoi Revolyutsii street). As time went on, Ufa was turning from a service classinhabited fortress into a political-administrative and business centre of the area. The town hall as a body of self-administration emerged here, which in 1772 was transformed into a town council.

The siege of Ufa by the detachments of Zarubin-Chika - Pugachev's comrade-in-arms - influenced the city's history. The mutineers approached Ufa's walls twice but failed to conquer the city. It is exactly to Ufa that Salavat Yulayev and his father YulaiAznalin were taken for a brief trial and punishment. It is from here that the legendary Bashkir poet and warrior was sent for the life-long imprisonment and banishment in the far-away Rogervik never to see his Homeland again.

After the Peasant revolt of 1773-75 Ufa's status of a fortress diminished, and in 1802 Ufa became the principal town of the province, the residence of the civil Governor of Orenburg Province and the seat of provincial bodies. The General Plan of 1819 (which guided the construction of the city until the early 20th century) provided for the expansion of the city boundaries. Streets in new districts, unlike crooked and narrow ones in "old" Ufa, were wide and straight. The focal point of the city was the Shopping Arcade, around which administrative buildings and two-storeyed mansions of the privileged and wealthy citizens clustered. While the number of brick houses in Ufa in 1824 was only 5, in 1889 these amounted to 159.

The Tsar's ukaz (order) of 1865 made Ufa the centre of Ufa Province. By its 300th anniversary the city streets numbered 43, among which, in addition to already mentioned Bolshaya Kazanskaya, the best were Tsentralnaya (Lenin Street at present), Uspenskaya (Kommunisticheskaya) and Aleksandrovskaya (Karl Marx Street). Also, there were 143 blocks of buildings, three parks, two boulevards and lots of privately owned gardens.

Along with the emergence of new neighbourhoods, the city centre was becoming more congested, the number of storeys increasing. In 1916 the number of two-and three-storeyed buildings in the city was several hundred. The newly-built public structures were especially beautiful and monumental: the S.T.Aksakov House (now the State Opera and Ballet House of the Republic of Bashkortostan), the Grand Siberian Hotel (Officers' Mess), the College of Commerce and the School of Trade (Aviational College). By that time the city's population was 112,000 - twice as much as at the beginning of the century.

Such a rapid growth of population in Ufa was later recorded only during the hardest years of the Great Patriotic War, when more than 100,000 people were evacuated to Ufa from the occupied areas. The residents of Ufa shared their own homes with the evacuees. The latter were also provided with housing at hostels, clubs and other public buildings.

First hospitals were organized in the city in July 1941. In a year their number was already 20, and they accommodated about 11,000 wounded. In 1941-42 more than 40 industrial enterprises were shifted to Ufa. Along with these, local factories and plants were working to meet the war requirements. During the war years Ufa became one of the major cities with a multi-industry economy.

The architectural look of the city is largely determined by monuments and public buildings - museums, theatres, culture centres, each of which, being designed individually, decorates and livens up streets and squares, parks and public gardens. Marble crumbs, ornamental tiles, monumental wall paintings are used as decorations.

A monument has been erected in Ufa's Victory Park to Heroes of the Soviet Union Alexander Matrosov and Minigali Gubaidullin who covered the enemy's embrasures with their own bodies. Buried here with full military honours is Musa Gareyev - one of the glorious aces of WWII, an assault pilot, twice Hero of the Soviet Union.

The rates at which the city was growing during the 1940s could not have been envisaged by any plans or projections. It became necessary to put town planning in good order, to develop the city with a prospect in mind. In June 1949 the Council of Ministers of the Republic discussed and endorsed the Master Plan for Reconstruction and Development of the Capital of Bashkortostan. That date may be considered as the starting point of the present-day Ufa.

The city of today consists of a tiumber of detached districts, stretching from SW to NE for more than 30 miles, occupying the area of approximately 180 sq. mi. The population of the city is over 1,100,000 people.

Until the end of the 1950s, the northern part of Ufa (it was a separate town of Chernikovsk at that time), Dyomski District, Zaton and Timashevo townships had been independently incorporated residential areas. Only the adoption, in 1959, of the Master Plan for Development initiated the creation of the single architectural space and ensemble. The Plan envisaged the completion of construction within Ufa peninsula and providing housing therein for 80 percent of the future one million-strong city. A provision was made to substantially improve the architectural look of the city, to widen its arterials. City planning harmoniously took into account the surrounding rivers. Old parks and public gardens were improved, new ones were established. Limetrees, birch-trees, blue fir-trees and ornamental shrubs decorated nearly all of the city streets.

The central and the longest (over 6 mi.) street in Ufa October Avenue - filled the empty span between the former municipal boundaries of Ufa and Chernikovsk, and linked the northern and the southern parts of the city. Many prominent R&D institutes are located along this arterial, including the institutes of the Bashkir Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Avenue's skyline is livened up by original buildings - the Circus, the best-in-town "Rossiya" Hotel, "lskra" cinema hall, "Ufa" department store.

New residential areas have taken shape among which are "Aiski", "Teletsentr" and others. A number of streets of the southern part of the city have been given a face-lift - Revolyutsionnaya, Tsyurupy, Frunze, Gafuri, Dostoyevsky, Karl Marx streets. The creation of spacious residential neighbourhoods in the northern and the central parts of the city has been completed. Pervomaiskaya, Ulyanovykh, Mashinostroitelnaya, 50-letiya SSSR streets have become more convenient and beautiful.

The architects declined the principle of a small-scale block development in favour of neighbourhoods equipped with comprehensive culture and service facilities. Free arrangement of structures and buildings has become widespread in "Lesoparkovyi" and "Sipailovo" neighbourhoods.

The rapid expansion of the city limits, its considerable length and remoteness of major industrial enterprises from the city centre have aggravated the municipal transportation problem. As a result, three main arterials have been created to connect the southern and the northern extremes of the city. One of them is October Avenue, the other two are Mendeleyev and Sorge streets. Trolley-bus routes have been added to the existing tram and bus service.

The road network has also been improved and reconstructed. More miles of new transitways, bridges over the Dyoma and the Aghidel, underground passages and overpasses enable to easier link the city's districts, to facilitate transit, to make traffic safer.

For a long time the city's skyline was dominated by lowrise wooden houses. By mid-1960s the most typical structures of the city were 5-storey residential blocks. Soon after, the construction of high-rise buildings began. The first 9-storey building was constructed at the corner of Lenin and Revolyutsionnaya streets in 1962, and after ten more years an apartment house 14 storeys high was erected at the intersection of Frunze and Vorovskogo streets. Today October Avenue is decorated with the two 20-storey high-rises made of in-situ concrete.

Multistoreyed buildings have not only added more square feet of housing, but have also diversified the city's architecture, have made the city more impressive.

During 1941-43 the city sent 88,952 soldiers to the Red Army. It is here tliat the 112th Bashkir Cavalry Division was formed. In 1943 it was transformed into the 16th Division of Guards, decorated for its feats of arms with the Orders of Lenin, of Combat Red Banner, with the Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov of theSecond Degree.