Три века алтайской столицы

Three centuries of the Altai capital

Altai is a unique territory, located in the center of Eurasia, which has been a kind of a «melting pot» since ancient times, where interwove the diverse ethnic features, cultural peculiarities, morals and manners, enriching the culture of this area. Significant natural resources determined specific features of economic development of the Altai territory. Many settlements appeared there owing to the mining industry and Barnaul became one of them. Founded in the 1730s on the initiative of Ural manufacturer Akinfiy Demidov as a settlement near a cooper smelting plant, for a long time it was one of the three settlements in Russia having the status of a mining city, which added peculiar features to its living. From the very beginning Barnaul was supposed to take the role of an administrative, economic and cultural centre of an immense territory, being called the Altai mining district before the revolution in 1917, and the capital of vast Altai Territory after it. The close connection between the pre-revolutionary Barnaul and the Russian capital - Saint Petersburg –manifested itself not only in the economy of the city (from 1747 to 1917 all the lands and works of the Altai District were Tsar’s family’s property) but in the way of life of the citizens and in its outer look. A bystander of that time was the ensemble of Demidov square that got a beautiful name «a corner of Saint Petersburg» for its correspondence to the classical architecture of the capital city. The cultural and scientific potential of the pre-revolutionary Barnaul made it possible for the city to become first in many spheres of life of that time; it was here where the first in the world universal steam atmospheric engine was invented, where the first in Russia alkali works appeared, the first in Siberia museum and botanical garden were founded and a lot more. After the closure of the silver smelting works in 1983 being earlier a peaceful and quiet «corner of Saint Petersburg» with aristocratic habits Barnaul turns into a pretty large trading center, a vivid and brisk merchant, which is brightly attested by the merchant buildings of «the old city». After the revolution in 1917 and especially after the Great Patriotic War owing to the evacuated enterprises Barnaul became a first-rate industrial city, being at the same time the administrative center of an agricultural area. Today Barnaul is the capital city of the Altai Territory with the population approaching 700000, where economy, education, culture as well as hospitality industry and a lot more are dynamically developing. Barnaul has abundant cultural and historical heritage that allows it to keep a status of «Siberian Athens».