The history of Petrozavodsk

Petrozavodsk

Plan

• Introduction
• General facts
• History
• Administrative and municipal status
• Attractions
• Suburbs
• Transportation
• Questions
• Sources

Introduction

Now I want to tell you about my home town. It is Petrozavodsk. I was born there but I don’t live there for all my life. I live there only for 12 years. Before that I lived in Tihvin.

Petrozavodsk in the evening.

General facts

Petrozavodsk is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, which stretches along the western shore of Lake Onega for some 27 kilometers.

Railway station.

History

Archeological discoveries in the urban area indicate the presence of a settlement as far back as seven thousand years ago, and during the Middle Ages the site of modern city was marked by several lakeside villages. Within the city limits, the district of Solomennoje appears in surviving records dating back to the sixteenth century, and a map produced by the Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius at the end of that century places a settlement here called Onegaborg on the site of modern Petrozavodsk.

Onego embankment.

On September 11, 1703, Prince Menshikov founded the settlement of Petrovskaya Sloboda . He did so at the behest of Peter the Great, who needed a new iron foundry to manufacture cannons and anchors for the Baltic Fleet at the time of the Great Northern War (1700–1721).

Aleksandrovsky factory .

At first the foundry used the name Shusky factory but a decade later it became Petrovsky factory , after the name of the reigning monarch. From this form the present name of the city derives.

Old Petrozavodsk .

By 1717, Petrovskaya Sloboda had grown into the largest settlement in Karelia, with about 3,500 inhabitants, a timber fort, a covered market, and miniature palaces of the Peter I and Menshikov. The town's best-known attraction became the wooden church of Saints Peter and Paul, rebuilt in 1772 and renovated in 1789. The church retained its original iconostasis until this relic of Peter's reign was destroyed by fire on October 30, 1924.

Church of Saints Peter and Paul.

After Peter's death, Petrovskaya Sloboda became depopulated and the factory declined. It was closed down in 1734, although foreign industrialists support copper factories in the surroundings.

Lenin square, old Petrozavodsk.

The industry revived in 1773 when Catherine the Great established a new iron foundry upstream the Lososinka River. Designed to provide cannons for the ongoing Russo-Turkish Wars, the foundry was named Alexandrovsky, after Alexander Nevsky, who was considered a patron saint of the region.

Lenin street , old Petrozavodsk.

The factory was modernized and expanded under supervision of Charles Gascoigne in 1787–96. Local pundits claim that the first railway in the world (чугунный колесопровод) was inaugurated for industrial uses of the Alexandrovsky foundry in 1788.

Old Petrozavodsk .

During Catherine's municipal reform of 1777, Petrovskaya Sloboda was incorporated as a town, whereupon its name was changed to Petrozavodsk. A new Neoclassical city center was then built, focused on the newly planned Round Square.

Lenin street , old Petrozavodsk.

In 1784 Petrozavodsk was large enough to supplant Olonets as the administrative center of the region. Although Emperor Paul abolished Olonets Governorate , it was revived as a separate guberniya in 1801, with Petrozavodsk as its administrative center.

Sobornaya street , old Petrozavodsk.

During the Finnish military administration of East Karelia in the Continuation War (1941–1944), the city was styled as Äänislinna (or Ääneslinna ), rather than the traditional Petroskoi. The new name was a literal translation of Onegaborg, the name of a settlement marked on a 16th-century map by Abraham Ortelius near the present-day city, Ääninen being the Finnish toponymy for Lake Onega.

Old Petrozavodsk .

In 1977, Petrozavodsk was the epicenter of what is called the Petrozavodsk phenomenon.

Lenin street , Petrozavodsk.

Administrative and municipal status

Petrozavodsk is the capital of the republic and, within the framework of administrative divisions, it also serves as the administrative center of Prionezhsky District, even though it is not a part of it. As an administrative division, it is incorporated separately as the city of republic significance of Petrozavodsk—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the administrative divisions of the Republic of Karelia. As a municipal division, the city of republic significance of Petrozavodsk is incorporated as Petrozavodsky Urban Okrug.

Petrozavodsk.

Attractions

Petrozavodsk is distinguished among other towns of North Russia by its Neoclassical architectural heritage, which includes the Round Square (1775, reconstructed in 1789 and 1839) and the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (consecrated in 1832). Among the town's attractions are the outdoor statues of Peter I (bronze and granite, Ippolit Monighetti, 1873), Gavriil Derzhavin (a Russian poet who was the first governor of Olonets in the 18th century), and Alexander Nevsky (erected outside Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in 2010).

Statue of Peter I .

The city has a fine frontage on the Gulf of Petrozavodsk. The modern embankment, inaugurated in 1994, displays an assortment of Karelian granites and marbles. It is lined with extravagant postmodernist sculptures presented by sister cities of Petrozavodsk from around the world. There is also a birch copse, where the first church of Petrozavodsk was built in 1703.

Onego embankment.

Petrozavodsk is home to the Karelia Philharmonic Orchestra (1933), the Karelian Musical Theater (1955, statuary by Sergey Konenkov), National Library of Karelia (1959), Finnish-speaking National Theatre of Karelia (1965), Petrozavodsk State University, a conservatory, a city museum founded in 1871, and a branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Karelian Musical Theater .

One of the city's central attraction is Lenin Square, an oval space with a large Soviet-era statue of Lenin in the center. The square is especially notable for English-speaking visitors because it is also called "round square" - an oxymoron in English, but not in Russian (kruglaya ploshad).

Lenin square .

Suburbs

The village of Shoksha near Petrozavodsk contains a quarry of red and pink quartzite which was used in construction of Saint Isaac's Cathedral and Lenin Mausoleum, and many other notable structures. There are also other quarries in the region excavating road aggregates (Goloday Gora – gabbro-diabase) near Derevyanka.

A quarry of red and pink quartzite .

The suburb of Martsialnye Vody is the oldest spa in Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1714 and visited by Peter I on four occasions. Its name means "The Waters of Mars" in Russian. Although Peter's palace at Martsialnye Vody has not survived, there is a museum devoted to the spa's history.

Martsialnye Vody .

From Petrozavodsk harbor a hydrofoil service of "KareliaFlot" company carries people to the Kizhi island, a World Heritage Site with an outdoor museum of ancient wooden architecture.

Kizhi island .

Transportation

The city is served by the Petrozavodsk Airport, and a train station on the Murmansk Railway with train connections to the main population centers of Russia.

An international tourist route Blue Highway goes through Petrozavodsk.

Petrozavodsk Airport

National Library of Karelia

Questions

• What is the capital of Karelia?
• When was Petrozavodsk founded?
• What are the main attractions of Petrozavodsk?
• What do you know about Martsialnye Vody?
• Who founded the settlement of Petrovskaya Sloboda?
• When was the modern embankment inaugurated?
• When was Catherine's municipal reformed?
• How many inhabitants were in Petrovskaya Sloboda in 1717?
• Is there an airport in Petrozavodsk?

Information was taken from:

• https://tonkosti.ru/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/
• http://www.petrozavodsk-mo.ru/
• Introduction I wrote by myself

The presentation was made by Elizaveta Gruzinskaia .