Курган. Город на реке Тобол.

The history of the town began in 1662 when the peasant from Tumen Timofey Nevezhin built a small fortress with the Kremlin on the steep bank of the river Tobol and named it Tsarevo Gorodishche. The settlement grew and soon became a town. In 1872 by order of Ekaterina the 2^nd it was renamed into Kurgan. In tsarist Russia Kurgan was the place of exile for 13 Decembrists. These well-educated and clever people influenced greatly upon cultural and economic life of our town. Before the Great October Revolution Kurgan was a backward merchant town with some private enterprises. After the Revolution the town began to develop at a very rapid rate.

Now Kurgan is a big industrial, educational and cultural centre of the region.

The largest enterprises of the town are the Machine-Building Plant, the Road-Building Machinery Plant, the Production Association “Synthesis”, the Plant of Metallic Constructions and others.

The town is a large cultural centre of Western Siberia. We have many secondary schools, some colleges, one university and one high military school. There is a drama theatre and the puppet theatre “Gulliver”, a concert hall, some modern cinemas and museums (the Art Museum, the Decembrists Museum), a TV-centre and an exhibition hall in Kurgan.

Our town is known all over the world due to the Ilizarov's Orthopedic Research Centre. People from many countries come to Kurgan to be treated there.

The population of our town is about 350000 people. The citizens of Kurgan like their town and are proud of it.