Belgorod
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Belgorod

Belgorod is one of the oldest towns in the country. It has a long and interesting history, which dates back to the ancient times. People settled on the Seversky Donets River in the Stone and Bronze Ages. The first settlements of the Slavs were established there approximately in the 11-th century.

Belgorod is first mentioned in the chronicles in the year 1237. Originally it was a very small settlement of the Slavs atop the chalky hil overlooking the Seversky Donets River, which was then a deep and navigable river. The White Hill gave its name to the future fortress town into which the little settlement had grown up by the 16-th century.

In 1596, under Tsar Fyodor, a fortress was built on the south boundary of the Russian State. It was of great strategic importance as it repulsed the attacks of the Tatar and Mongol Hordes. The fortress "whitetown" was founded by the Russian army chiefs (voevodes) Princes Michael Nosdrevaty and Andrew Volkonsky on June 16, 1596. That's why June 16, 1596 is considered to be Belgorod's birthday.

The people of Whitetown were occupied with fishing and hunting wild deer, brown bears and wild goats.

After the Polish and Lithuanian invasion of 17-th century Belgorod was destroyed and all its wooden buildings were burnt. In 1626 the new fortress of Belgorod was built on the left bank of the Seversky Donets River, opposite the old site. But that new site of the fortress was rather inconvenient: it was low and swampy. In spring there always was the hazard of overflow.

During the reign of Tsar Michael Romanov the noblemen N.T. Odoevsky and V.P. Sheremetyev were sent to find a new site for the fortress of Belgorod. And the building of the new fortress on the right bank of the river began in 1650.

Now  it  was   situated  between  the  rivers  Seversky  Donets  and Vesyolka. Belgorod had been built by 1651 under the supervision of the army chief (voevode) Prince B.A. Repnin. Later on a bridge was erected across the Seversky Donets River. At the end of the 17-th century and the beginning of the 18-th century Belgorod had a monastery of St. Nicholas founded by order of Boris Godunov in 1599, a nunnery, 9 churches and 353 houses.

Gradually Belgorod grew stronger and in 1727 it became the chief administrative centre of the region, comprising the Belgorod, the Oryol and the Kursk provinces with their 33 towns and cities and a population of 1.146 000 inhabitants. In 1766 many wooden houses, mainly in the central part of Belgorod were burnt by fire. Two years later a general plan for reconstruction was approved by Katherine II. According to this plan the streets of Belgorod became straight and regular.

In the course of centuries Belgorod has changed its status several times. In 1785 after the abolition of the Crimea Kingdom, Belgorod ceased to be a fortress. It became a district centre and still later, before and during the Second World War Belgorod was considered a district centre belonging to the Kursk region. Only in 1954 according to a special decree it became a centre of Ihe Belgorod region separate from the Kursk region.

II. After the October Revolution and the Civil War which was a hard period in the life of the Belgorod district the town began to restore and develop its economy and agriculture. Many factories, plants, power-stations, houses were built, collective and state farms were organized.

On June 22, 1941 the Great Patriotic War broke out. The fascist invaders came twice to occupy Belgorod in the course of three years. For the first time Belgorod was occupied on October 24, 1941 after a heavy battle at the village of Streletskoye in which the Red Army was defeated.

The invaders brought destruction, suffering, death and enslavement to (he occupied land. But the inhabitants of Belgorod couldn't stand this. They were not terrified. They organized partisan detachments on occupied territory and began to fight courageously against the fascist aggressors. On February 9, 1943 Belgorod was liberated by the Red Army Divisions, but a month later they had to leave the town. The German fascists returned to Belgorod and remained in it till the summer of 1943 when a great battle was fought at Prokhorovka. More than 4mil. men, over 69.000 guns, 13.000 tanks, 12.000 aircrafts, took part in the fighting, which lasted 50 days and nights (July 5 -August 23, 1943). This battle of Kursk Bulge was one of the greatest battles in the Great Patriotic War" and World War II as a whole. Hitler's operation "Citadel" ended in failure. The enemy lost half a million soldiers and officers, 1.500 tanks, 3.000 guns, more than 3.700 aircrafts.

The victory in the battle of Kursk Bulge was of great importance as it was a turning point in the Great Patriotic War.

On August 5, 1943 Moscow fired a salute in honour of the liberation of Belgorod and Oryol for the first time during the war years. Belgorod is justly called the "Town of the First Salute". Since then it became a tradition to mark every victory of the Red Army by firing salute in its honour. To commemorate the battle of Kursk Bulge the Kursk Bulge Diorama Museum was opened in the centre of Belgorod on August 3,1987.

III. Belgorod was razed to the ground during the Great Patriotic War. When the Red Army entered Belgorod it found there only 150 inhabitants alive out of 34.500 before the War. The town lay in ruins. As soon as Belgorod was liberated restoration work began. The inhabitants of Belgorod began to reconstruct the destroyed industrial enterprises, many new ones were built up, agriculture was reorganized. Blocks of beautiful buildings rose up in the town and thousands of people moved into new homes.

Nowadays Belgorod is one of the administrative, industrial and cultural centres of the Russian Federation in the South of the Black Earth Zone. Its population is about 300.000 people and its area is 300 square kilometres.

As an industrial centre Belgorod has 60 industrial enterprises including the Power Engineering Works, the Plant of Metalline Constructions, the Milling-Cutter Plant, the Cement Plant, the Cannery, the Furniture Factory, the Shoe Factory, the Clothes Factory and others.

There are more than 20 research and designing institutes in Belgorod. Belgorod is an educational centre of the region. In it there are six establishments of higher education: Belgorod State University, the Technological University of Building Materials, the Cooperative University, t he Agricultural Academy, the Institute of Culture and the Institute of Jurisprudence. Belgorod has a lot of secondary educational establishments. Highly-skilled workers are trained in vocational schools.

The heart of the town is Sobornaya Square. It's the place of mass demonstrations, festivities and meetings. In the Square there is a monument to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War with the eternal flame burning at the tomb.

There is the Administration Building also in the Square and opposite it there is the Drama Theatre, named after the great Russian actor Michael Shepkin. It's an imposing building with a colonnade, which attracts everybody's attention. To commemorate the 200-th anniversary of M. Shepkin's birth a monument to the greatest actor was unveiled in November 1988 in Lenin Street (now - Grazhdanskiy Prospect), the main street in Belgorod.

There are 49 monuments and about 50 memorial places telling the citizens of Belgorod and the visitors about the historical events, the feats of arms and of labour of townspeople.

Of great historical interest is the Belgorod Land Study Museum. The halls of the Museum acquaint its visitors with collections of documents, armoury, coins, clothes and furniture. You can also see there fine collections of insects, stuffed animals and birds. There are also some Palaces of Culture, modern department stores, the Puppet Show, multi-storey buildings, new streets and districts, including the Kharkov hill district. All these have changed the "White town" beyond recognition. The aspects of the town are constantly changing.

The townspeople are proud of the town and do their best to make it more beautiful.

Belgorod authorities attach great importance to the conservation of national culture, and monuments of history and culture. Like all cities with several centuries of history, Belgorod combines in its architecture the beauty of old buildings with the grandeur and originality of modern ones.

Belgorod has been birthplace of many famous people known to all the country: poet and publicist, officer V.F. Raievskiy, whose family estate was in the village of Hvorostianka (now the village of Raievskoie, Goubkinskiy area). A participant of the Patriotic War of 1812, he was awarded a golden sword for courage. In 1825, the Decembrist Raievskiy was sentenced to death, but then

exiled to Siberia. In 1856 Raievskiy was amnestied, but this freedom-loving man stayed in Siberia until his death.

On this land started and finished the brilliant but short life of N.V. Stankevich. During his studies at Moscow University he created a philosophic group, which greatly influenced social life in 1830s Russia.

The memory of Stankevich is perpetuated in the names of streets in Alexeevka (the Belgorod region), Voronezh and Moscow.

The great actor M.S. Shepkin was the pride of Russian theatre. He was born in the village of Krasnoie (now in the Yakovlevskiy area) in a serf family. Shepkin spent many years in provincial acting companies, suffered the severities and humiliations of migratory life, remaining a serf of the court of Wolkenstein. Only in 1822 was he redeemed on money collected by progressive people and invited to work to the Moscow Theatre (since 1824 — the Maly Theatre). Shepkin dedicated 40 years of his life to this theatre.

In Belgorod a street and local theatre are named after Shepkin; a monument to the great actor is erected at the entrance to the theatre. There is a Shepkin museum in the village of Krasnoie.