The fate of cities is as unpredictable as the fate of individuals. In 1792, Catherine II granted the Black Sea Cossacks land from the Kuban to the Black Sea and from the Yeisk town to the Laba. A typical frontier - wherever you look - bare steppe. It will turn out - honor and glory to the Cossacks, it will not work - someone else will move to pacify.
The Cossacks did it. Less than a hundred years later, Ekaterinodar, as the Cossacks named it after the Empress, turned into one of the largest cities in southern Russia. Then, already under Soviet rule, Krasnodar (renamed in 1920) developed so rapidly that it began to step on the heels of Rostov, which was considered the southern capital.
In the XXI century, Krasnodar continues to grow and increase its importance. The city has either already become a millionaire, or is about to become one. But it’s not even about the number of residents. The economic and political weight of Krasnodar is growing. These factors, combined with a fairly favorable climate, despite the inevitable difficulties of growth, make the city an attractive place to live. What are the highlights in the capital of the Kuban Territory?
1. Krasnodar is located on the 45th parallel; they are even going to install a corresponding memorial sign in the city. It is no less known that for Russia Krasnodar and the adjacent territories are a blessed south, where millions of Russians would gladly move. But everything in the world is relative. On the same 45th parallel in the United States, real, by local standards, northerners live, because these are areas of the border between the United States and Canada, where there are ten-degree frosts and snow falls almost every winter. For Canadians, respectively, the 45th parallel is synonymous with sun and warmth. In Asia, the 45th parallel passes through the fertile Central Asian valleys, and through the dead steppes and deserts. In Europe, these are the south of France, the north of Italy and Croatia. So it is hardly fair to consider the 45th parallel "golden". The maximum is the “golden mean” - not Norilsk, but there are places with a better climate.
2. In 1926, Vladimir Mayakovsky visited Krasnodar twice. The poet reflected his impressions of his first visit in February in a short poem published in the Krokodil magazine under the biting title “Wilderness of the Dog”. The title of the poem was given in the editorial office, but then the public did not go into the intricacies of publishing. During Mayakovsky's second visit to Krasnodar in December, a skirmish broke out in the hall with a poet speaking from the stage (a normal phenomenon for those years). Mayakovsky, who never went into his pocket for a word, in response to a remark about the “incomprehensibility” of his poems, trumped: “Your children will understand! And if they don't understand, it means they will grow up like oak trees! " But the poem has since been published under the names "Krasnodar" or "Sobachkina's capital". There were really a lot of dogs in Krasnodar, and they ran freely around the city. Decades later, the "Doctor St. Bernard" was recalled. A dog belonging to a famous doctor could go to the theater during a performance or to an institution during a meeting. In 2007, at the corner of st. Red and Mira have erected a monument to the dogs with a quote from a poem by Mayakovsky.
3. Until recently, Krasnodar tea was the northernmost tea in the world, which was produced on a serious scale (in 2012, tea was successfully grown in England). They tried to plant tea on the northern slopes of the Caucasus since the middle of the 19th century, but to no avail - tea was taken, but froze out in severe winters. Only in 1901, a former worker on Georgian tea plantations, Judah Koshman, successfully planted tea in the territory that is now part of the Krasnodar Territory. At first, Koshman was laughed at, and when he started selling his tea at a ruble per pound, they began to ruin him - tea cost at least 4 - 5 rubles per kilogram, that is, more than 2 rubles per pound. The mass production of Krasnodar tea became only after the revolution. High-quality Krasnodar tea is obtained with various shades of taste, and the Soviet Union exported it for tens of millions of rubles. The then import substitution almost ruined tea - in the 1970s-1980s, tea was required to grow more and more in order to replace imports for foreign currency. It was then that the opinion about the particularly low quality of Krasnodar tea was formed. In the XXI century, the production of Krasnodar tea is being restored.
4. Krasnodar residents loved to scare themselves with a 5-point earthquake, which, allegedly, could destroy the dam of the Kuban Sea. The volume of water in this reservoir is such that the water will wash away not only two-thirds of Krasnodar, but everything else that comes across on the way to the Black Sea. But recently the continuation of the scenario has gained popularity - the water rushing into the sea will push the Azov-Black Sea tectonic plate with the release and subsequent explosions of cosmic volumes of hydrogen sulfide. And in the world, as has long been known, death is red.
5. Nowadays endlessly reconstructed stadium “Dynamo” was built in 1932. During the occupation, the Nazis turned it into a POW camp. After the liberation of Krasnodar, a hasty restoration of industry and the residential sector began, there was no time for stadiums. Restoration of “Dynamo” began only in 1950. Thanks to the then rare technology of assembling stands from prefabricated reinforced concrete and the method of folk construction - Krasnodar residents, both old and young, came to the stadium to work at any convenient time - the case was completed in a year and a half. In May 1952, the first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU Nikolai Ignatov, who initiated the reconstruction, solemnly opened the renovated stadium. House of Sports "Dynamo" with a swimming pool was built in 1967.
6.October 4, 1894, the first electric lights were lit on Krasnaya Street. In early May 1895 Yekaterinodar acquired its own telephone exchange. On December 11, 1900, Yekaterinodar became the 17th city in the Russian Empire, where a tram started operating. The trolleybus service in the city opened on July 28, 1950. Natural gas appeared in the residential sector of Krasnodar on January 29, 1953. On November 7, 1955, the Krasnodar television center began broadcasting (it was the so-called Small, test television center - there were 13 television receivers in the whole city then, and the Big television center went into operation four years later).
7. The railway could come to the then Yekaterinodar in 1875, but the laws of the capitalist market economy interfered. The draft law on the construction of the Rostov-Vladikavkaz railway line was approved back in 1869. In the joint-stock company created for the construction and subsequent operation of the road, most of the shares belonged to the state. Private "investors" intended to make money on the construction of the road, and after the completion of it, sell it at exorbitant prices (lobbyists had already been trained) to the same state. Formally, there was a concession agreement right up to 1956, but no one seriously thought about it. Therefore, the railway was built faster and cheaper. Why spend money on the purchase of expensive land in Yekaterinodar, if you can lead a road through the wasteland, where land is worth a penny? As a result, there was no one to drive along the newly opened road and nothing to carry - it walked past all the centers of the North Caucasus. It was only in 1887 that a railway line was extended to Yekaterinodar.
8. A native of Yekaterinodar, who received only a four-year education at the School of Salesmen, he developed a method of photographing the light emitted by atoms, which was named after him - the "Kirlian Effect". Semyon Kirlian was born into a large Armenian family, and from childhood he was forced to work. Golden hands combined with a sharp mind made him an indispensable master for the whole Krasnodar. For the printing house, he made an oven that allowed printers to self-cast quality fonts. With the help of its magnetic installation, the grain was cleaned with high quality in the mills. Kirlian's original solutions worked in the food industry and medicine. Seeing a dim glow between the electrodes of the physiotherapy apparatus in the hospital, Semyon Davidovich began to photograph various objects in this glow. He noticed that such a glow can be used to diagnose a person's condition. Without government support, Kirlian and his wife Valentina, who helped her husband in his work, continued research for decades, until the death of the inventor in 1978. The modern hype around the "Kirlian Effect" with the identification of auras, etc., has nothing to do with the outstanding Krasnodar citizen.
9. By his own admission, Samuil Marshak became a children's writer in Yekaterinodar. During the Civil War, he first sent his family to this city, and then moved himself. Despite the fact that Ekaterinodar several times passed from white to red and vice versa, the city was full of cultural life. Moreover, this boil did not depend on the color of the flag over public places - both reds and whites signed execution orders with one hand, and with the other they were allowed to open literary magazines and even theaters. 18 July 1920 at the Children's Theater, organized by Marshak and his girlfriend Elizaveta Vasilyeva, the premiere took place plays by Samuil Yakovlevich “The Flying Chest”. "The Cat's House" and "The Tale of the Goat" were also written in Yekaterinodar, but already under Soviet rule.
10. Surprisingly, despite the presence of Vladimir Shukhov's hyperboloid tower in Krasnodar, the city still has no visual symbol. The coat of arms of the city looks more like a charade for heraldry lovers than the personification of Krasnodar. But the unique tower with a tablet-water tank, built in 1935, even wanted to be demolished. It didn’t come to this, and now the tower is surrounded on three sides by the buildings of the shopping center “Gallery Krasnodar”. As an emblem, it has so far only fit the municipal enterprise Vodokanal. The tower thundered throughout Krasnodar in 1994, when one of the local newspapers “exposed” the illegal breeding of crocodiles in the tank. Allegedly, when trying to transport the crocodiles fled and now settled in the Kuban. The belief in the printed word was then so strong that in the middle of summer the beaches were empty.
11. Along with monuments to real people in Krasnodar, monuments and memorial signs are erected in honor of the most unexpected characters and events. Along with the monument to the artist Ilya Repin, who performed the main part of the preparatory work for the painting “The Cossacks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan” in Krasnodar, there is also a monument to these very Cossacks - the characters of the painting. Ilya Ilf has never been to Krasnodar, and Yevgeny Petrov spent only a few days in the city in the military turmoil of 1942. Their main literary hero, Ostap Bender, has also never visited Krasnodar, and there is a monument to the witty swindler in the city. There are monuments in the city to the nameless Guest and the Pirate, the wallet, Shurik and Lida from the immortal comedy "Operation Y" and other adventures of Shurik.
12. Only the official population of Krasnodar in the last decade has been steadily increasing by 20-25,000 people a year. Many see this as a reason for pride: Krasnodar either became (on September 22, 2018, it was even solemnly celebrated, but then Rosstat corrected it) or is about to become a millionaire! However, such population growth was a disaster even in the years of the planned economy; in a market environment, it creates problems that generally seem insoluble. This also applies to the situation on the roads. Traffic jams are created in winter and summer, in rain and dry weather, during peak hours and even due to minor traffic accidents. The situation is aggravated by the disgusting state of storm sewers - after more or less heavy rain, Krasnodar can be temporarily renamed Venice. The growing population lacks schools (in some schools there are parallels with classes up to the letter "F") and kindergartens (the number of groups reaches a catastrophic 50 people). The authorities seem to be trying to do something, but neither a school, nor a kindergarten, nor a road can be built quickly. And dozens of them are needed ...
13. Krasnodar is a sports city. In recent years, of course, thanks to Sergei Galitsky, the city in sports is associated with FC Krasnodar. Founded in 2008, the club has gone through all the steps of the Russian football hierarchy. In the seasons 2014/2015 and 2018/2019, “Bulls”, as the team is called, ranked third in the Russian Football Premier League. Krasnodar also managed to become a finalist in the Russian Cup and reach the Europa League playoff stage. He was a finalist of the Russian Cup and another Krasnodar club “Kuban”, but due to financial problems the team, which had existed since 1928, was disbanded in 2018. Basketball club “Lokomotiv-Kuban” twice became the winner of the Russian Cup and the winner of the VTB United League, in 2013 won the Eurocup, and in 2016 became the third prize-winner of the Euroleague. The SKIF men's handball club, as well as the Dynamo men's and women's volleyball teams, play in the top Russian divisions.
14. Krasnodar Airport, which was recently named after Catherine II, also bears the name Pashkovsky. The air gates of Krasnodar are located in the east of the city, not far from the center - you can come to Pashkovsky by trolleybus. In terms of the number of passengers served, the airport ranks 9th in Russia. Passenger traffic at Pashkovsky airport has a pronounced seasonality - if in the winter months a little more than 300 thousand people use its services, then in summer this figure rises to almost half a million. About 30 airlines operate flights to Russian cities, the CIS countries, as well as to Turkey, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Greece and Israel.
15. In the struggle for the title of one of the capitals of Russia, Krasnodar would be nice to involve cinematographers in its popularization. Until now, they frankly did not spoil the beautiful southern city with their attention. Famous films, for which the streets of Krasnodar served as a kind, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. These are, first of all, both adaptations of the trilogy by Alexei Tolstoy "Walking in agony" (1974 - 1977, V. Ordynsky and 1956 - 1959, G. Roshal). Filmed in Krasnodar quite famous films "In my death, please blame Klava K." (1980), A Memento for the Prosecutor (1989), and The Football Player (1980). The last film shot in Krasnodar is also dedicated to the theme of football. This is Danila Kozlovsky's “Coach”.
16. There is a real submarine in Krasnodar. So real that, according to the common bike, in the early 1980s, a drunken company nearly hijacked (or even hijacked, but was quickly caught) a boat from the dock. The M-261 boat is in the “Park of 30 Years of Victory”. She was transferred to Krasnodar from the Black Sea Fleet after being written off. In the 1990s, the museum was closed, and the boat was in a deplorable state. Then it was tinted and patched up, but the work of the museum has not resumed.
17. The newest pearl of Krasnodar is the stadium of the same name. The construction was financed by the owner of the football club “Krasnodar” Sergey Galitsky. The construction of the stadium took exactly 40 months - construction began in April 2013, finished in September 2016. Krasnodar was designed in Germany, it was built by Turkish firms, and internal and external logistics were developed by Russian companies. The Krasnodar Stadium seats over 34 thousand spectators and is considered one of the best stadiums in the world in its class. Outwardly, it resembles the Roman Colosseum. The stadium is adjoined by a chic park, the construction of which continued after the opening of the football arena. The cost of the park is comparable to the price of a stadium - $ 250 million versus $ 400.
18. While everywhere in Russia the tram is declared an unprofitable mode of transport with the corresponding consequences for tram lines, in Krasnodar they even manage to subsidize other transportation at the expense of the tram.Moreover, Krasnodar plans to build over 20 km of new tram lines and buy 100 new cars in the coming years. At the same time, it cannot be said that the tram in Krasnodar was somehow super-modern. There are few new cars, there are no electronic devices like GPS-information at every stop, and the payment (28 rubles) is sometimes accepted in cash. However, an extensive network of lines, small intervals of movement and maintenance of rolling stock and rails allow the tram to remain a popular urban transport.
19. Compared to the overwhelming majority of Russian cities, the climate of Krasnodar is excellent. Severe frosts are rare here, even in January the average temperature is +0.8 - + 1 ° С. There are usually about 300 sunny days a year, precipitation is distributed fairly evenly. However, from the point of view of comfort, things are not so rosy. In spring and autumn, the climate in Krasnodar is very good, but in summer, because of the high humidity and heat, it is better not to protrude outside again. Air conditioners are massively used in the premises, which electrical networks and substations cannot withstand. In winter, due to the same humidity, even minimal frost with wind leads to icing of roads, sidewalks, trees and wires.
20. Own Maidan in Krasnodar began on January 15, 1961, long before Maidans became mainstream. The name of the Krasnodar "onizhedete" was Vasily Gren - a conscript soldier tried to sell office junk in the market. He was detained by a military patrol. The outraged crowd tried to repulse the victim of the regime. Law enforcement officers were inactive, and the events rolled like a snowball. The crowd first stormed the police stronghold, and then the military unit, but only achieved the appearance of another sacred victim - a high school student, who was ricocheted by a sentry's bullet at the military unit. The next target of the outraged citizens was the city committee of the party. Here the assault was a success - the partocrats fled through the windows, individual citizens managed to seize a lot of useful things for the continuation of the struggle: carpets, chairs, mirrors, paintings. Tired protesters went to bed right in the building of the city committee. There, in the morning, they began to be arrested. Provocateurs were identified, lawsuits were held, and it seems that they even passed a couple of death sentences. But the authorities did not draw any conclusions - they had to shoot seriously in Novocherkassk.
