Saratov (Russian: Сара́тов​ (help·info)) is a major city in southern Russia. It is the administrative center of Saratov Oblast and a major port on the Volga River. Population: 873,055 (2002 Census);^[3] 904,643 (1989 Census).^[5] In addition to ethnic Russians, the city also has many Tatar, Ukrainian, Jewish and German residents.

History

According to legend, Saratov is the successor of Gelonus, a Scythian city that was the northernmost colony of the Greeks, and which is conjectured to have existed near the present-day city. Gelonus is mentioned in the Sixth Book of the Histories of Herodotus, according to which the city was burnt to the ground by the The Persian Emperor Darius in 512 B.C. Ukek, a medieval outpost of the Golden Horde is considered a more likely ancestor to today's Saratov.

The modern city traces its history to the reign of Tsar Feodor Ivanovich, who constructed several settlements along the Volga river in order to secure the southeastern boundary of his state. During the summer of 1586 the fortress of Samara was founded, followed by Tsaritsyn in 1589 and finally Saratov, located midway between Samara and Tsaritsyn, in 1590. Saratov was built at the insistence of count Grigory Zasekin. All three forts were located in a region where the Volga and the Don flow nearest one another, which allowed the Duchy of Moscovy to secure both rivers and to insure control over the recently annexed khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in the years following the Livonian War.

The future town's buildings were constructed in the upper reaches of the Volga a full year prior to the in situ foundation of Saratov. In the spring of 1590 the constructions were disassembled, each log was marked, and the entire town was delivered to its destination via the river. This method allowed the town to be built in its entirety in just a few weeks.

The name Saratov may derive from the Turkic words Saryk Atov which means ‘hawks' island’. Another version of the name origin is "Sary Tau" (Сары Тау) meaning Yellow Mountain in the Tatar language, a theory supported by the presence of sandy hills around the city.

By the 1800s Saratov had grown to become an important shipping port on the Volga. The Ryazan-Ural Railroad reached Saratov in 1870^[6]. In 1896 (26 years later) the line crossed the Volga and continued its eastward expansion. A unique train-ferry, owned by the Ryazan-Ural railroad, provided the connection between the two parts of this railroad on opposite banks of the river for 39 years before the construction of a railway bridge, in 1935.

During the World War II Saratov was a station on the North-South Volzhskaya Rokada, a specially designated military railroad providing troops, ammunition and supplies to Stalingrad^[7].

Until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, Saratov was designated a "closed city", that is, strictly off limits to all foreigners due to its military importance. This was due to the presence of a vital military aircraft manufacturing facility in the city.

The German community

Saratov is an important city in the history of the Volga Germans. Until 1941, the town of Pokrovsk, today Engels, located just across the Volga from Saratov, served as the capital of the Volga German Republic. The German population of the region numbered 800,000 in the early 20th century.

The Volga German community included industrialists, scientists, musicians and architects, including those who built Saratov's universities and conservatories. At the outbreak of World War II, roughly half of all Volga Germans were expelled to Siberia and Kazakhstan, with few returning to the region after rehabilitation. Beginning in the 1980s, a large portion of the community emigrated to Germany, but several reminders of the once prominent place of Germans in the city remains, with the Roman Catholic St. Klementy Cathedral (seat of the Diocese of Tiraspol) on Nemetskaya Street , being the most notable.

Modern Saratov

The Saratov region is highly indutrialized, due in part to the rich in natural and industrial resources of the area. The region is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia. Saratov possesses six institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 21 research institutes, 19 project institutes, as well as the Saratov State University, theSaratov State Socio-Economic University and many scientific and technological laboratories attached to some of the city's large industrial enterprises.

Saratov is served by Saratov Tsentralny Airport, and also hosts the general aviation airfield Saratov West. The aerospace manufacturing industry is served by the Saratov South airport.

Places of Interest, Art, and Culture

One of the city's most prominent landmarks is the 19th century neo-Gothic Conservatory. When it was built in 1912, the Conservatory was Russia's third such institution (after Moscow and St. Petersburg). At the time, Saratov, with a population of 240,000, was the third-largest city in Russia.

The Saratov Dramatic Theatre was founded in 1802, making it one of Russia's oldest. It is ranked as one of Russia's National Theatres. In Soviet times, the theatre was renamed in honour of Karl Marx, but now carries the name of Ivan Slonov (1882-1945), an actor, theatre director and educator, born in the city. The full name in Russian is The I.A.Slonov Saratov State Academic Theatre (Саратовский государственный академический театр драмы имени И. А. Слонова).

Saratov is noted for several art museums, including the Radischev Art Museum, named for Alexander Radishchev. It contains more than 20,000 exhibits, including ancient Russian icons, as well as works by some of the finest Russian painters (e.g. Aleksandra Ekster, Pavel Kuznetsov, Aristarkh Lentulov, Robert Falk, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Martiros Saryan, Fyodor Rokotov).

Sport

FC Sokol-Saratov is based in the city and plays in the Russian Second Division. Saratov also fields a basketball team, Avtodor, and an ice hockey team Kristall Saratov, who play in the Russian Major League. The Saratov bandy club Universal^[8] plays in the 2nd highest division.

Twin cities

• Bratislava (Slovakia),
• Dallas, Texas, (USA),
• Dobrich (Bulgaria),
• Taiyuan (China),
• Shaoyang (China),
• Łódź (Poland),
• Marseille (France),
• Tours (France),
• Bristol (UK) Active in early 1950's,
• Chapel Hill, North Carolina, (USA).

Famous people

The Saratov region was the birthplace or at some point hometown of:

• Philanthropist Alexander Dubitsky
• Politician Pyotr Stolypin
• Biologist Nikolai Vavilov died an unknown death in a Saratov jail about 1943
• painter Mikhail Vrubel
• Aircraft designer Oleg Antonov
• Writer Mikhail Bulgakov
• Sisters of Vladimir Lenin
• Philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky
• Architect Fyodor Shekhtel
• Chemist Nikolai Zinin
• Geometrician Jean-Victor Poncelet
• Writer Konstantin Fedin
• Painter Viktor Borisov-Musatov
• poet Gavrila Derzhavin
• composers Alfred Schnittke and Leonid Sobinov
• writer Aleksandr Radishchev
• writer Lev Kassil
• painter Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
• painter Pavel Kuznetsov
• chemist Nikolay Semyonov
• painter and creator of Radishchevskiy Museum in Saratov Aleksey Bogolyubov
• actor Oleg Tabakov
• actor Oleg Yankovskiy
• actor Boris Andreyev
• actor Alexander Mikhailov
• actor, director Boris Babochkin
• Russian folk singer Lidiya Ruslanova
• Pop singer Valeriya
• Pop band Kombinaciya
• cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin the first man in space trained in Saratov and landed nearby.
• hockey player Andrei Lulin
• poet Rachel Bluwstein
• billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich
• writer Konstantin Paustovsky
• politician and writer Eduard Limonov
• Herwarth Walden, German expressionist artist, publicist and gallerist, fled 1933 from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union and died in 1941 as a political prisoner in Saratov.
• Gottlieb Nathaniel Bonwetsch, German Protestant theologian, born on Norka near Saratov ([3])

References

External links

• Saratov.Ru
• Old photos of Saratov
• Radischev Art Gallery
• Catalogue of the Radischev Gallery
• Cultural guide of Saratov
• Saratov Digital - Virtual reconstruction of Saratov
• Saratov city streets views