Tomsk ( ) is a city on the Tom River in the southwest of Siberian Federal District, Russia, the administrative centre of Tomsk Oblast. One of the oldest towns in Siberia, Tomsk celebrated its 400^th anniversary in 2004. Population: 501,784 (2009 est.); It is served by Bogashevo Airport.

Geography

Tomsk is divided into four city districts: Kirovsky, Leninsky, Oktyabrsky, and Sovetsky. The historical areas of Tomsk include: Voskresenskaya Gora (Resurrection Hill), the Swamp, Belozerye, Greater and Lesser Yelany, Zaistochye (Tatar settlement), the Lakeside, Kashtak, Kirpichi, and Mukhin Mound .

In 2005, the city annexed the settlements of Eushta, Dzerzhinsky, Timiryazevskoye, Zonalny, Loskutovo, Svetly, Kirgizka, and Kopylovo.

Tomsk is located about twenty kilometres south-east of the town of Seversk, a major centre of plutonium production and reprocessing and uranium enrichment.

Climate

Tomsk has a continental climate. The annual average temperature is . Winters are severe and lengthy, and the lowest recorded temperature was in January 1996. However, the average temperature in January is between and . The average temperature in July is . The total yearly rainfall is 435 mm. In 2006 Tomsk experienced what might have been its first recorded hurricane-force winds which toppled trees and damaged houses.

History

In 1604, Tomsk was established under a decree from Tsar Boris Godunov. The tsar sent 200 Cossacks under the command of Vasiliy Tyrkov and Gavriil Pisemsky to construct a fortress on the bank of the Tom River overlooking what would become the city of Tomsk. A local tribal leader, Toyan, accepted Russian control and ceded the land for the fortress to the Tsar.

In 1804, the government selected Tomsk to become the center for a new governorate which would include the modern cities of Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk and eastern Kazakhstan. The new status brought development and the city grew quickly.

The discovery of gold in 1830 brought further development to Tomsk in the 19^th century. However, when the Trans-Siberian Railroad bypassed the city in favor of the village of Novonikolayevka (now Novosibirsk), development began to move south to connect with the railroad. In time, Novosibirsk would surpass Tomsk in importance.

In the mid-19^th century, one-fifth of the city’s residents were exiles. However, within a few years, the city would be reinvented as the educational center of Siberia with the establishment of Tomsk State University and Tomsk Polytechnic University. By World War II, every 12^th resident of the city was a student, giving rise to the city's informal name - Siberian Athens.

After the Russian Revolution the city was a notable centre of the White movement, led by Anatoly Pepelyayev and Maria Bochkareva, among others. After the town’s capture by the Red Army, Tomsk was incorporated into the West Siberia region and later into the Novosibirsk Region.

As in many Siberian cities, Tomsk became the new home for many factories relocated out of the War Zone at the beginning of the Second World War. The resulting growth of the city led the Soviet government to establish a new Oblast centered on Tomsk.

File:Tomsk Privokzalnaya square 1.jpg|Tomsk Central Railway Terminal.File:TSU-2004-19924.jpg|The Main Building of Tomsk State University.File:Tomsk-university-cliniques.jpg|Tomsk University clinic in the early 1900s.File:Trinity tomsk.jpg|The Trinity Cathedral,designed by Konstantin Thon, built as a replica of Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral, destroyed in the 1930s.File:TomskCoin.jpg|2004 silver three-rouble coin commemorating the city.File:Tomsk 1898.jpg|City map, circa 1898.

Politics

Tomsk is governed by a mayor and a 33-member city Duma. The current mayor is Alexander Sergeyevich Makarov (who was arrested in 2006) and the current Duma chairman is Nikolay Nikolaychuk, both are members of The United Russia Party. Mayor Makarov is currently suspended from his post pending the outcome of criminal proceedings against him. in russian Of the 33 members, 16 are elected from the eight double mandate districts while 17 are chosen from party lists.

In the October 2005 local elections, United Russia was expected to cruise to a solid victory; however, the Pensioners Party put up a strong showing. The final count was:

Proportional representation

• 19.42%—5 seats—Pensioners Party
• 17.85%—5 seats—United Russia
• 9.95%—3 seats—Communist Party
• 8.57%—2 seats—Union of Right Forces/Yabloko coalition
• 7.77%—2 seats—Liberal Democratic Party of Russia—
• 14.67%—Against all candidates

Double mandates

• 10 seats—No party affiliation
• 4 seats—United Russia
• 1 seat—Pensioners Party
• 1 seat—Liberal Democratic Party of Russia

Education

Tomsk has a number of prominent institutions of higher education, including:

• Tomsk State University is the oldest university in Siberia (founded in 1878, opened in 1888). The archives of the Tomsk State University Library are ranked among the richest in Russia.
• Tomsk Polytechnic University, founded n 1900 is the oldest technical university in Siberia.
• Siberian State Medical University, one of the oldest and highest rated medical schools in Russia.
• Tomsk State Pedagogical University
• Tomsk State University of Architecture and Construction
• Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics
• Tomsk Economics and Law University
• Tomsk Institute of Business

The large number of educational institutions in the city have contributed to making Tomsk a major centre for Russia's IT industry. Tomsk was one of the first cities in Russia to possess Internet service, which became available in the early 1990s due to grants received by the universities and scientific cooperation.

Culture

Tomsk has many local cultural institutions including several dramatic theaters as well as a children’s theater and a puppet theater. Major concert venues in the city include the Conservatory Concert hall and the Tomsk Palace of Sport. The city also has cultural centers dedicated to German, Polish and Tatar languages and culture.

One of the city's prominent theaters was destroyed in an act of terrorism in 1905. The Korolevskii Theater (built in 1884–85) was being used by a group of communist revolutionaries when the theater was attacked and set on fire by members of the Black Hundred, a hard-line nationalist organization. Those who escaped the flames were gunned down by Black-Hundred members waiting outside the theatre. Estimates put the number of casualties at between 200 and 1000.

There are a number of museums in Tomsk devoted to various subjects, most notably art, local history and wood carving. There is also a 'Museum of Oppression' housed in a former KGB dungeon. Tomsk State University has a number of small museums with exhibits on archaeology, paleontology, zoology as well as a herbarium and botanical garden

As in many other cities in the former Soviet Union, the revolutionary government destroyed a number of old churches in the city including two that had existed since the 17^th century. However, Tomsk managed to retain some of its churches by transforming them into machine shops, warehouses, archives, and even residential buildings. Since the end of the communist era some of the churches have been renovated and returned to their congregations.

Tomsk is well-known for its intricate "gingerbread" decoration of its traditional wooden houses. However, the number of old homes in this style is decreasing due to fire, as the structures have little to no fire protection, and redevelopment.

Trud Stadium, in central Tomsk hosts FC Tom’, the city’s professional soccer club. The team’s 2004 promotion to the Russian Premier League gave local fans a chance to see some of the nation's best teams play at their local stadium.

Tomsk has many local media outlets including the TV2 television station, the radio stations Radio Siberia and Echo of Moscow in Tomsk along with several newspapers (Tomskii Vestnik, Tomskaya Nedelya, Krasnoye Znamya and Vechernii Tomsk).

In April 2006 Tomsk received international media attention as the venue of a major summit on economic cooperation, held in the city between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Notable Residents

• Mikhail Bakunin — prominent anarchist
• Nikolai Borschevsky — former NHL player
• Nikolai Burdenko — surgeon, the first president of the USSR’s Academy of Medical Science
• Edison Denisov — composer, musicologist, public servant
• Nikolai Erdman — dramatist
• Abram Petrovich Gannibal — general of the Imperial Army, grandfather of Alexander Pushkin, famously called “The Negro of Peter the Great”, resided in Tomsk from December 1729 to February 1730
• Leonid Govorov — Marshal of the Soviet Union
• Nikolay Kamov — helicopter designer and founder the Kamov Helicopter Company
• Sasha Kaun — University of Kansas basketball player
• Sergei Kirov — revolutionary
• Nikolai Klyuev — poet
• Vladimir Korolenko — writer
• Valerian Kuybyshev — revolutionary
• Yegor Ligachev — second in command to Mikhail Gorbachev (name pronounced “Ligachyov”)
• Mikhail Mil — helicopter designer, founder of the Mil Helicopter Company
• Nikolai Nikitin — scientist involved in the founding of the oblast
• Vladimir Obruchev — geologist, geographer, writer, academic
• Anatoly Pepelyayev — White Russian general
• Ivan Petlin — thought to be the first Russian to reach China on an official mission (1618)
• Grigory Potanin — geographer, ethnographer, publicist, folklorist, oblast supporter
• Alexander Radishchev — writer, philosopher
• Nikolai Rukavishnikov — cosmonaut
• Gustav Shpet —p hilosopher
• Pyotr Sobolevsky — actor
• Konstantin Staniukovich — writer
• Kanysh Satpayev — Soviet geologist
• Mikhail Usov — geologist, academic
• Alexandr Volkov — writer
• Lyubov Yegorova — six-time Olympic cross-country ski champion
• Yakov Yurovsky — bolshevik, chief executioner of the Romanov Family

Economics

Energy Generation

Tomsk has the oldest electrical grid in Siberia. There are three powerstations in the city:

1. TEC-1 (launched on January 1, 1896)
2. GRES-2 (launched on May 28, 1945)
3. TEC-3 (launched on October 29, 1988)

Tomsk consumes more electric energy than it produces. The bulk of the city's electric and thermal energy is produced by the GRES-2 (281 MWt) and TEC-3 (140 MWt) powerplants, belonging to Tomskenergo Inc. Tomsk supplements its energy needs with electricity generated at Seversk.

Transportation

Road network:

• northern branch of the M 53 federal road;
• road R 398 to Kolpashevo;
• road R 400 to Mariinsk;
• Northern latitude highway Perm—Surgut—Tomsk (under construction).

There is a commercial and passenger port on the Tom River.

The city is served by Bogashevo Airport.

Railways

Tomsk is a small railway center that is situated on the Tayga (Тайга́)—Bely Yar line (Tomsk branch) of the Trans-Siberian Railway

The main line of the Trans-Siberian railway, built in 1896, passes 50 km south of Tomsk and bypasses Tomsk. Access from Tomsk to the Trans-Siberian railway is available via the town of Tayga. A regional rail line links Tomsk with Tayga.

The Tomsk Railway existed as an independent entity until 1961. At the present time, the Tomsk line belongs to the West-Siberian Railway, branch of Russian Railways Corp.. Trains link Tomsk to Anapa, Asino, Barnaul, Bely Yar, Moscow, Novokuznetsk, Novosibirsk, Sochi and Tayga.

City transport

The main part of inner-city and suburban transportation is provided by marshrutka collective taxis, over 1000 marchrutkas, mainly PAZ) minibuses, serve about 40 bus routes.

Additionally, the city has 11 proper bus routes, 8 trolleybus lines (built in 1967) and five tram lines (constructed in 1949). Private taxis are also readily available.

Air Transport

Tomsk Bogashevo Airport is served by the following airlines:

The airport is also served by charter flights operated by UTair and Alrosa Mirny Air Enterprise

International relations

Twin towns — Sister cities

Tomsk is twinned with:

• Monroe (Michigan, USA)
• Tbilisi (Georgia)
• Ulsan (South Korea)

References

1. General Information about Tomsk, Kommersant Daily

External links

• Tomsk City Administration
• Fotoalbum to the 400^th anniversary of Tomsk
• The Pictures of Tomsk on Flickr.com
• Tomsk Site Catalog
• T-sk.ru Tomsk Search Engine