Astrakhan

I’m a native resident of Astrakhan. I was born here and have been living here So Astrakhan is my native town and I’d like to tell something about it. I ’ve visited some other towns and cities but I’ve never been there more than a month. Astrakhan attracts me no matter what and interesting places I was in.

Astrakhan is situated on the bank of the Volga River near the Caspian Sea. It emerged hundreds years ago on 12 islands at the place where the great Russian river joins the Caspian Sea. The history of our town dates back to the 13-th century when a small settlement appeared on the banks of the river Volga.

Astrakhan was founded in 1558 but it does not mean that there were no towns on the territory of modern Astrakhan Region. Since old times there have been different settlements of nomadic tribes. There was a state of Khazars, with the capital ITIL. At about 140 km, from modern Astrakhan there was an ancient capital of the Golden Hords – SARAI–BATU – that of the great and powerful empire of tatar–mongols. Great battles were on this territory among Slavs, Pechenegs, Khazars and Polovets.

But the history of the present Astrakhan began only in the 16-th century. It is closely connected with the history of our Kremlin. It was built in 1552 and this data is considered to be the beginning of our town history, which is very rich. Stepan Rasin, Yemelyan Pugachen, Ivan Bolotnikov visited our town during the peasants’ uprisings. The history of the town closely connected with such famous names as Tatischev, Alexsander Dumas, Taras Shevchenko, Anton Chekhov, Alexsander Suvorov, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Peter the Great, Alexsander I.

The left bank of the river was chosen then for the Kremlin and centre of the town because it is the most suitable place for the fortress where Astrakhan was at that time. The place named Hare’s Island. It is here that the Kremlin is situated.

At present Astrakhan covers 44.1 thousand square kilometers. Since old times it has absorbed many types of architecture. The largest part of town centre belongs to the end of the XIX-th and the beginning of the XX-th century. As our town was situated in the crossroads of the trade ways there appeared many foreign residents influencing much its architecture. Now lots of modern buildings exist in the centre of the town.

There is 1 mln. people living here. If you look at the map you can see that Astrakhan has common borders with Kazakhstan, Kalmyk Republic, Volgograd Region. Our region is situated near the Caucasus and we have a sea border with Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Iran, Turkmenia. That’s why people of different nationalities (163) inhabit our region.

Frankly speaking, Astrakhan was not highly developed industrial city untill recently. Of course, there were some large factories and plants but the natural resources of the Region were not widely used then. Today Astrakhan is the centre of highly developed gas–processing, light and fish industry. The town is still famous for its fisheries. Farmers still grow water–melons, cabbage, red beet, tomatoes, rice that are considered among the best in the country. That’s why the town is sometimes called “the country’s vegetable garden”. The Region exports tomatoes, water-melons, fish and fish products, sturgeon and black caviar in particular, and it gives the town pride and fame. Besides Astrakhan is an important river and sea port. It is the centre of ship-building which is rooted deep in the past. Speaking about industry in Astrakhan we can’t but mention about the environmental situation here. Work of the Pulp-and-Paper Plant, processing of sulphur at the Gas-Processing Complex don’t add positive effect to the surrounding medium. Strict measures must be taken to prevent Cripling effect as the results of these productions.

Some very important problems in this situation concerning health protection arise in our Region, as well as the problems of water purity, soil protection and air polluting.

Astrakhan is connected with other cities of the country and some foreign countries by trains, airplanes and steamers. Our airport is of international status. Town’s internal means of transportation are trams, buses, trolley-buses and taxi service.