What was the name of Samara before? History of Samara

On the question of how Samara was called before, many will answer "Kuibyshev" and will be right. However, this name was received by the city at a time when many populated areas of the country were renamed in honor of prominent party members and revolutionaries, but its history began much earlier. That's about what name he wore before and what role he played in the life of Russia, we will talk in our article.

The first mention of the Samara River and the city of the same name

The name of the city is directly connected with the name of the river Samara, which is a tributary of the Volga. The first mention of it is found in the notes of the secretary of the Arab Embassy of Ibn Fadlan, who visited there in May 922. He calls her the river Samur, referring to the name given to her by local nomads. However, the Arab diplomat does not mention any settlements.

About how Samara was called before, that is, before it was officially established on the maps of Russia, the researchers have a certain hypothesis, according to which its former name was consonant with the present one. This is evidenced, in particular, by the Venetian map, which came down to us, dating from 1367, where a settlement, called Samar, is designated in the area of the Middle Volga region.

The same settlement was also applied to another map, compiled in 1459 by the Catholic monk Fra Mauro who traveled along the Volga. However, there are skeptics who question the eligibility of identifying the ancient Samar with the city that arose on the bank of the Volga River in 1586.

The fortress, built by the will of the king

It is in this year that the history of Samara begins, based on the river of the same name, near its confluence into the Volga. The times were extremely hectic, and in order to save the region from the constant raids of nomads, as well as to protect from them the waterway from Kazan to Astrakhan, the sovereign Fedor Ioannovich ordered Prince GO Zasekin to build a fortress there.

The question of how Samara was formed was considered by many generations of Russian historians. It was established that by the will of the king there was first a small jail that grew over time and turned into a fortress that gave rise to a large Volga city. Its foundation and further construction are detailed in the documents that have come down to us. They also give the name of the city, which excludes any doubt about the name of Samara before.

The first inhabitants of the Samara town

According to historians, the Samara Fortress, which has not survived to this day, was located in the part of the city where the valve manufacturing plant is located today. Although in those days they did not have any idea of percussive construction projects, but the order of the sovereign was executed without delay and the fortress was erected surprisingly quickly - in just three months.

A new town, still smelling of fresh resin, was set up in Samara (as it was customary to call it in the old days), servicemen-archers, gunners and "collars", that is, those who were to guard the gate from all dashing people. Here the boyars were also referred to the fatherland by the decree of the tsar.

The history of Samara in the 17th century is a chronicle of ongoing works on its strengthening and expansion. As a result, by 1700 the city consisted of five defensive lines, including the Kremlin, two pointed lines and as many lines of holes, soon destroyed by dilapidation. However, this powerful outpost had a very significant drawback - all its structures were wooden, which affected the most pernicious way during the fires that swept the city in 1700 and 1703.

From the fortress to the industrial giant

Taught by bitter experience, the Samarans erected a new earthy fortress on the site of the former ashes. During the archaeological excavations carried out in 2013-2014, the remains of this structure were discovered in the area of Khlebnaya Square.

In 1851, the Samara Province was formed, and from that time the city, which became its capital, received a powerful impetus for its economic and cultural development. At the end of the XIX century, Samara was even called the "Russian Chicago" for its rapidly growing industrial production and trade. The city, which numbered fifteen thousand inhabitants in those years, abounded in various enterprises, warehouses and steam mills.

It is interesting to note that it was here for the first time in Russia that the horse was replaced by a tram that left the city depot in 1915. As the newspapers of that time noted, it was completely assembled from domestic parts and materials. Samara is the homeland of the "Zhigulevsky" beer, so beloved by all of us , which we started to produce in 1881 at a factory owned by Austrian entrepreneur Alfred von Wakano. By the way, in the beginning it was called "Vienna", but then it got a more patriotic name.

Renaming of Samara

In the first post-revolutionary years, Samara for some time retained its independence from the Bolsheviks, and power in it belonged to the so-called Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly. However, the course of history was inexorable, and eventually it became one of the other Soviet cities. In 1935, "at the request of the working people" (as it was once called the individual directives of the CPSU), the city was given the name of a prominent revolutionary and party leader V. Kuibyshev.

The second capital of the country

An important role in the life of the country the city played during the Great Patriotic War. In fact, it served as the second capital of the Soviet Union. Here, along the banks of the Volga, the Government and a number of foreign diplomatic missions have moved.

In case of emergency, the city was ready to become the rate of Supreme Commander-in-Chief JV Stalin. Especially for him was built a residence, equipped with an underground bunker. Today it is part of the city museum and is open to visitors.

The city in the war years

In addition to government agencies, many enterprises evacuated from the western regions of the country were also located in the city, as a result of which the level of industrial production in it during the war years increased five-fold. To provide the front with combat aircraft, a powerful air complex was established in the city, which established the production of such world-famous aircraft as IL-2 attack planes and Mig-3 fighters.

The Moscow Bolshoi Theater was also located here and continued to work. An important event in Kuibyshev's cultural life of the military era was the execution in his hall of the seventh Leningrad Symphony, completed by D. D. Shostakovich, who was here in the evacuation. A peculiar monument of the war was the city embankment, for the facing of which was used granite, exported in due time from defeated Germany.

The flag of Samara, which has become a symbol of modern times

Throughout the entire period of the Communist rule, right up to the beginning of perestroika, party ideologists made every effort to destroy in the people the memory of how Samara was called earlier. The same trend was observed in other renamed cities of the country.

However, already in 1990, at the very beginning of the democratic transformations that swept the country, the city was returned to its historical name, and eight years later the Samara City Flag approved the flag of Samara. It would not be an exaggeration to say that for the townspeople it became not only an official symbol of the municipal formation, but also a visible embodiment of the changes brought by the restructuring of every citizen of Russia.