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Kemerovo Region
// GENERAL INFORMATION
Kemerovo Region (Kuzbass) is located in the southeastern part of Western Siberia where the West Siberian Plain meets the mountains of Southern Siberia. The region borders on Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions, Altai and Krasnoyarsk territories, the Altai Republic, and the Republic of Khakassia. It has an area of 95 700 km2.
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The climate is continental with long winters (5 months) and short summers. The average January temperature is -20 °C, and the average summer temperature is +20 °C, although temperatures can range from -40 to +40 °C.
The region was formed on January 26, 1943. It is divided administratively into 19 districts, 20 cities, 46 towns, 235 rural administrations, and 1066 rural communities. The city of Kemerovo is the regional center.
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Although it is one of the smallest regions of Siberia and the Urals, Kemerovo Region has a well-developed road network and strong, diversified economy and is one of Siberia's economic leaders. The region's key sectors are the coal, metallurgical, and chemical industries, where nearly one-third of Western Siberia's fixed capital assets are concentrated. Kemerovo Region has abundant natural resources and strong export and investment potential. Foreign economic activity is crucial for successful development of the regional economy; and today, the Kuzbass has foreign trade ties with 60 countries in the CIS and abroad.
The region exports 1200 industrial products, including coal, coke, rolled metal, cast iron, aluminum, zinc, ferroalloys, roofing slate, cement, glass, nitrogen fertilizer, plastics, synthetic fibers and resins, electrical products, and heavy machinery.
The soils of the Kubass are extremely fertile black earths (chernozems), but the long cold winters, short dry summers, and early frosts make harvests unpredictable. Moreover, only 5% of the region's able-bodied population is engaged in agriculture.
With a population density of 31 people per km2, Kemerovo Region is one of Russia's most populous regions, as well as one of the most highly urbanized (87% of the population is urban). One of the reasons for this is the development of Russia's largest coal basin. Since the region was formed, its population has increased 1.7 times to nearly 3 million people (2.1% of the Russian population). People of 117 different nationalities live in the region. Russians make up the majority of the population. There are another 140 000 people of various Turkic nationalities, including small native groups like the Teleuts (2219 people) and Shors (13108), who make up 0.5% of the total population. Slightly more than half of these native people (8350) live in cities and towns. There are no purely Teleut or Shor villages in the region, although there are 90 villages where people of these nationalities are the majority. The Teleuts and Shors have preserved their customs, cultures, and languages; and several members of these ethnic groups are well known as writers in their native languages or specialists in folklore and linguistics. Ethnographic museums with exhibits portraying the life and culture of the Teleuts and Shors have been established in the city of Tashtagol and the village of Bekovo in Belovsky District.
The largest Turkic nationalities in the region are Tatars (63 116 people), Chuvashes (24 372), and Mordvins (13 894).
The largest cities in Kemerovo Region are Novokuznetsk (576 000) and Kemerovo (530 000), followed by Prokopevsk, Leninsk-Kuznetsky, Mezhdurechensk, and Kiselevsk, which have a population of more than 100 000 each.
Economically active age groups make up 46% of the region's population. A total of 397 000 people work in industry, 85 000 in transportation, 81 000 in construction, and 56 000 in agriculture. Pensioners make up another 20% of the population.
HISTORY
The city of Kemerovo was formed in 1918 from the villages of Shcheglovo (founded in 1720) and Kemerovo (founded in 1863). The city was called Shcheglovsk until 1932, when it received the name of Kemerovo after the nearby railway station, which became part of the city. The city's growth is connected with coal mining and the construction of coke and chemical plants in the 1930s.
The first coal mines in the present region were constructed in 1907; however, natural resource development actually began in the early 17th century, when the cities of Tomsk (1604) and Kuznetsk (1618) were founded.
Industrial development of the Kuznetsk territory began in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Tomsk Iron Works, the Gavrilovsky and Gurievskoi silver smelters, and the Sukharinsky and Salairsky mines were among the region's first industrial enterprises. Nearly a century later, construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway provided new incentives for the industrial use of iron ore, nonferrous metals, coal, and wood in the Kuzbass.
The city's industrial development received a significant boost during the Second World War, when large companies and factories were evacuated from the European part of the USSR to Kemerovo. On January 26, 1943, owing to a dramatic turn of events at the front, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet issued a decree separating the Kuzbass from Novosibirsk Region and creating Kemerovo Region on its territory with the aim of increasing coal production and the output of metals and armaments for the front at Kuzbass factories. The new region included 17.5% of the territory, 9 of 12 regionally administered cities, 17 of 20 industrial communities, and 23 of 75 districts of Novosibirsk Region, as well as 42% of its population. Postwar industrial growth was almost entirely due to the construction of new chemical plants, especially nitrogen plants. Several plants for producing synthetic materials were also built.
RESOURCES
Kemerovo Region is the best studied area of Siberia in the geological sense. The names "Kemerovo Region" and "Kuzbass" are identified with the Kuznetsk Coal Basin, one of the largest in the world. Hard coal predominates in the basin; coking coal accounts for half of its explored reserves. The western part of the Kansk-Achinsk brown coal basin is located in the northeastern part of the region. Gornaya Shoriya, Kuznetsky Alatau, and Salair have rich deposits of iron, copper, and polymetal ores, urtite-nepheline, bauxite, and phosphorite. The mountainous surroundings of the Kuzbass also contain gold placers. Deposits of siderite ores that can be strip-mined have been discovered in the northeastern part of the region. A native zeolite deposit is being developed in the Saltymakov Range.
The region also has abundant reserves of non-ore economic minerals such as sand-gravel mix, building sand, clay shale for making expanded clay aggregate, building stone, diabase for stone casting, raw materials for rock wool, marble, refractory clay, foundry sand, vermiculite, asbestos, talc, tremolite, and basalt.
However, there is more to Kemerovo Region than industrial landscapes of coal mines and pits and the buildings of chemical, metallurgical, and engineering plants. There are also many areas that have preserved strikingly beautiful natural landscapes combining high, snow-covered mountains, river-laced taiga, and open steppe.
The rivers in the region belong to the Kara Sea basin. The largest river system in this basin is the Tom River and its tributaries the Mrassu, Kondoma, Usa, Upper (Verkhnyaya), Middle (Srednyaya), and Lower (Nizhnyaya) Ters, Taidon, and Chulym rivers. Other rivers include the Kiya and Yaya. Potential water resources are 24.9 billion kWh per year, or 12.5% of the total resources of Western Siberia.
Mountains surround the Kuznets Basin on three sides like a horseshoe. On the west is the low Salair Ridge; on the south, the Abakan Range; and on the east, the Kuznetsky Alatau Mountains, the territory's largest and highest system. The highest point of the Kuzbass, the eternally snow-covered Upper Tooth (Verkhny Zub), is located here in the austere range known as the Sky Teeth (Podnebesnye Zubya). In summer, the range is a fantastic jumble of wild cliffs with alpine meadows ablaze with flowers; round transparent lakes; scree; and multitudes of snowfields, mountain bogs, springs, and streams.
The animal life of the Kuzbass is as varied as the natural landscapes. Bears, sable, lynx, badgers, wolverines, weasels, squirrels, chipmunks, hares, and otters have lived here since ancient times. Foxes inhabit the forest steppe, and moose and roe deer are found in the northern part of the region and the Salair foothills. The highlands of Kuznetsky Alatau are the habitat of the Siberian reindeer.
Kemerovo Region is located in the subtaiga and forest steppe zones. The predominant soils are chernozems and gray forest soils. Chernozems are especially widespread in the western part of the Kuznetsk Basin. Peat soils are found on floodplain terraces.
Forests occupy about 40% of Kemerovo Region. Birch forest steppe covers the northern and central parts of the Kuznets Basin, and birch forests with stands of larch and pine are common in the foothill regions. Alpine fir and aspen forests grow on the mountain slopes, forming a large tract of dark taiga in Gornaya Shoriya. Pine, cedar, and spruce are found along with fir in the extreme northeast. There are two parks in the region: Shorsky National Park and Kuznetsky Alatau Nature Reserve.
ECONOMY
Kemerovo Region is part of the West Siberia economic district and is the coal and metallurgical base of Western Siberia. Although it occupies only 7% of the area of Western Siberia, it has 25% of the total population and about 30% of the urban population.
The location of the producing coal deposits, which constitute the main wealth of this part of Western Siberia, largely determines the region's level of industrial development, its economic structure, and distribution of the population and urban centers. The relatively small area between the Salair Ridge in the west and the Kuznetsky Alatau range in the east holds 600 billion tons of high-quality coal at depths of up to 1800 m. In some places, the coal seams even crop out on the surface.
The Kuznetsk Basin is a series of deposits bounded on the west by the Kuznetsky Alatau. The Anzherskoe deposit is the most northerly of the series; and the Tom-Usinskoe, the most southeasterly. The ore reserves of Gornaya Shoriya are also located here.
Kuznetsk (now Novokuznetsk) was chosen as the site for a metallurgical plant because of its closeness to Prokopevsk with its valuable coking coal, the presence of local coal deposits, and a reliable water supply from the Tom River. The most economically efficient way to develop a ferrous metallurgy industry is to concentrate all metallurgical plants in one area. Thus, the West Siberian Steel Corporation (Zapsib) is located near the Kuznetsky Metallurgical Combine (KMK) in Novokuznetsk. In addition to these two plants, there is also the complete-cycle Gurievsky Metallurgical Works (Gurievsky metallurgichesky zavod).
Kuznetskiye Ferroalloys (Kuznetskie ferrosplavy) of Novokuznetsk, which delivers its products to metallurgical plants for alloying steel, was set up here to take advantage of the cheap fuel supply. The coal industry is the basis for the power-consuming chemical and nonferrous metallurgical plants that operate in various cities in the region. For example, nitrogen fertilizer and aniline dye plants and a plastics factory have been built around a byproduct coke plant in Kemerovo. A zinc plant operating on concentrates from the Far East and to some extent from the Salair mines is located in Belovo. There is also an aluminum smelter in Novokuznetsk in addition to KMK and the ferroalloy plant.
Ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy provide the raw materials for the region's engineering industry, which specializes in producing mining equipment for the coal industry. There are engineering plants in almost all the major coal-mining centers.
Kemerovo Region's specialization in coal and metallurgy, along with the chemical industry and heavy engineering, has contributed to the development of a number of other economic sectors. The agricultural product business is well developed in the region. A system of poultry farms and hothouse businesses plays an important role in supplying the urban population with vegetables, eggs, and other products. The city of Mariinsk is the center of the food industry. Mountainous districts in Kuznetsky Alatau and Gornaya Shoriya are centers of the forest industry, gold, nepheline, coal, and iron ore mining, and commercial hunting. The most important cities in these districts are Tashtagol and Mezhdurechensk in Gornaya Shoriya and Belogorsk in Kuznetsky Alatau.
Economically, the Salair Ridge district belongs to the Kuznetsk Basin, but it has its own particular natural environment and economic profile. The ridge is comprised of eroded mountains forming a system of low hills with gentle western slopes and steep eastern slopes. This old Western Siberian mining district arose in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and is well known for its silver-lead ores. Deposits of bauxite, barite, non-ore materials, and sulfur pyrites have also been discovered here in addition to polymetal ores. Commercial exploitation of these deposits has given rise to the small cities of Gurievsk and Salair. A metallurgical plant that processes forge iron operates in Gurievsk, and Salair is a center of polymetal ore production and processing.
Kemerovo is a major industrial region with well-developed engineering and chemical industries. Prokopevsk, Kiselevsk, and Andzhero-Sudzhensk are coal-producing centers, and Novokuznetsk is the center of the engineering industry. Products manufactured in the region are exported to more than 30 countries. Coal is delivered to Slovakia, Turkey, Greece, Germany, and other foreign countries. AO Azot exports ammonia to England, the United States, Germany, and Romania; catalysts and chemicals for rubber to the Czech Republic, Egypt, and Algeria; caprolactam [a synthetic crystalline compound used in manufacturing nylon] to Romania and countries of the former Yugoslavia; and carbamide to Southeast Asia. AO Tokem, Russia's main producer of phenolic plastics, has extensive ties with the CIS countries and also supplies its products to Japan, Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Germany, and other foreign countries. Companies in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America use aniline dyes manufactured in Kemerovo Region.
The region's economic development depends above all on the creation of favorable conditions for investors and business partners. Investment activity in industry is the basis for achieving economic growth in the Kuzbass. In the last several years, the regional administration has concluded more than 25 mutually beneficial all-round cooperation Agreements and Protocols, which will make it possible to achieve the specified level of economic development through the joint efforts of all parties.
In addition to having a strong industrial base, Kemerovo Region is also an agricultural region. Agricultural lands occupy 2.7 million hectares (36% of the region's territory) and include 1.6 million hectares of cropland and 1.1 million hectares of meadows and pasture. Grain farming is an important agricultural sector, and a large part of the cropland (676 000 hectares or 43%) is sown in grain.
More than 550 agricultural businesses and 2500 farms are part of the region's agricultural complex; 80% of these businesses and farms are privatized. Individual farms occupy 113 000 hectares of land. The largest crops are vegetables and potatoes, and meat and dairy products are also important. Cattle and pig farming, beekeeping, and fur farming are expanding. Wheat, barley, and oat cultivation predominates in the northern part of the region. Grain, potato, and vegetable harvests have shown an overall increase between 1998 and 2002, although the grain harvest in 2002 was 12% less than in 2001 and potato production also decreased slightly (about 1%) in the same period. The number of head of cattle decreased about 2% to 332 000 in 2002 compared to 2001, while the number of pigs increased nearly 5% to 315 000 head in the same period. Egg production in 2002 was about 8% less than in 2001.
AUTHORITIES
The Administration of Kemerovo Region headed by the Governor is the region's highest executive body.
The Government of Kemerovo Region is an executive and administrative body that directs the region's executive bodies and exercises control over their work. The government has the right to repeal acts of structural subdivisions of the government and other bodies within its jurisdiction.
CULTURE AND ART
There is great emphasis on preserving and developing culture in Kemerovo Region. Special programs such as "Intellectual Development of the Kuzbass" and "Kuzbass Information and Library Network" exist for the purposes of long-term development of culture and the arts in the Kuzbass. A program for identifying young talent called "Young Talents of the Kuzbass" has been in place since 1992. Unions of writers, artists, theater personnel, architects, and journalists have been set up to support the region's cultural workers.
A network of cultural and arts institutions, including 783 libraries, 826 clubs, 3 exhibition halls, 35 museums, 137 children's music and art schools, 18 parks of culture and rest, 5 mid-level special educational institutions, and 10 theater performance schools have been established for the public.
Artistic groups from the Kuzbass, such as the symphony orchestra of the Kemerovo State Philharmonic, the Kuzbass Chamber Choir (prize-winner at an international festival of academic choirs in Finland; silver medal winner at a competition in Italy), and the Novokuznetsk Chamber Choir (winner of a Golden Award at the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy international choral competition in Germany) are known both in Russia and abroad.
Amateur folk arts are also developing. Some examples are the Sibirskie Vykrutasy ensemble of Prokovesk, the Ritm i My dance ensemble and the Kalinka ensemble of Novokuznetsk, and birchbark
crafts in Prokopevsk, Kemerovo, and Mariinsk. Siberia's only birchbark museum has been opened in Mariinsk.
Important annual cultural events in the region include Theater Stars for Kuzbass Miners, the Kuzbass Theater Festival, the Jazz at the Old Fortress international festival, a choreographic show competition for Trud newspaper's cultural department prize, the Gladness (Radost) children's festival of popular songs in the city of Myski, the show competition for the Governor of Kemerovo Region's Kuzbass Palette prize, and a competition for awarding Kuzbass name prizes in the fields of literature and art:
- the A.K. Bobrov prize for achievements in theater arts;
- the N.A. Kapishnikov prize for concert performance achievements;
- the Bachinin prize for painting;
- the V.D. Vuchichevich-Sibirsky prize for graphic art, sculpture, and decorative art;
- the V.D. Fedorov prize for poetry;
- the A.N. Voloshin prize for prose, drama, and journalism.
There are more than 1500 historical and cultural monuments in Kemerovo Region, 27 of which are of federal significance (14 archeological, 6 historical, 5 architectural, and 2 artistic monuments). The most unusual of these is the Tomsk Trivia (Tomskaya pisanitsa) monument in the village of Pisanaya, Yashkinsky District, which is considered an especially valuable site of the Russian Federation. The most important monuments of the Kuzbass include the 18th- and19th-century historical and architectural museum at Kuznetsk Fortress in Novokuznetsk, a group of monuments and historic sites on the former Siberian Highway (Moscow-Irkutsk), and the Shestakovsky historical and cultural complex of archeological monuments and paleontological sites in Chebulinsky District.
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