City of Magadan: population, climate and attractions

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

The population of Magadan is 92,782 people. This is the data for 2018. It is the capital and largest city of the region, where the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Magadan region live (according to the latest data, about 70 percent).

Population

The population of Magadan has declined significantly since Soviet times. According to the first official data available to researchers, 27,313 people lived in the city in 1939.

After that, over the years, the dynamics were extremely positive. Already in 1956, the population of the city of Magadan exceeded 50 thousand people. In 1973, 101 thousand inhabitants were already recorded. In 1989, the population of Magadan exceeded the mark of 150,000. The record was set at the moment in 1991. At that time, 155 thousand people officially lived in this city.

Negative dynamics

After that, reverse negative dynamics began. The population of Magadan by years has becomeshrink inexorably. This trend continued until 2002. Throughout the 1990s, people left Magadan en masse, but no one came to replace them. The population, residents of Magadan, by 2002 amounted to only 99,399 people. After that, positive dynamics began. As throughout the country, the situation in this regional center began to improve in the 2000s.

Until 2007, the population, the number of residents of Magadan grew. True, not by much, reaching the mark of only 100,200 people. Then the decline began again, which continued until recently. After hitting a low point by 2016 (at that time Magadan had a population of 92,081), there has been a positive trend in the last couple of years. Experts note growth and positive dynamics.

The total population of Magadan at the moment is 92,782 people.

History of the city

The Russian government began to show interest in the Okhotsk coast and Chukotka from the beginning of the 19th century, when the authorities decided to intensify their search for new deposits. They were especially interested in precious metals. Therefore, expeditions were equipped to the outlying regions of Russia, but they could not find a lot of gold, so much that it could be mined on an industrial scale.

Finally, in 1915, near the Srednekan River, the miner Shafigullin, who had the nickname Boriska and traditionally worked alone, found the first gold in Kolyma.

In 1926, an expedition of a Soviet geologist arrived at this placeSergei Obruchev to assess the conditions for the location of this precious metal. An expedition began to study the Kolyma in detail, which two years later was headed by geologist Yuri Bilibin. Detailed information about the economy of this region was collected by the Molodykh hydrographic expedition. It was these researchers who managed to open Nagaev Bay as the most convenient for establishing a port and starting to build roads from this place.

In 1928, an official decision was made to build the Vostochno-Evenskaya cult base, and the following year they began to build houses for employees, a veterinary station, a comprehensive school, a boarding school building and a hospital. It is 1929 that is considered the year of foundation of Magadan, which at that time still had the status of a village. It became a city 10 years later.

From 1930 to 1934, Magadan was considered the center of the Okhotsk-Even National District, and from 1954 to the present it has been the center of the founded Magadan Region.

City Development

The population of Magadan in the early years was predominantly newcomers. So, in 1931, one and a half thousand soldiers of the Far Eastern Army, who were demobilized, immediately arrived on a steamer called Slavstroy. The population of Magadan immediately quadrupled, because before that there were no more than five hundred people in the settlement.

After the arrival of the soldiers, a tent city arose, and the main street in it was named after the commander of the Far Eastern Army, Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher.

Geologists andthe miners, who began to come to Magadan in large numbers, naturally needed equipment and food supplies. Cargo was delivered along the Olskaya trail, which was a pack trail, and then rafted along the rivers, which took a very long time and was too labor-intensive.

These issues began to be resolved after a trust was created in 1931, responsible for road and industrial construction, which appeared in the Upper Kolyma region. A few years later, it became officially known as the Main Directorate for the Construction of the Far North (in short - "Dalstroy"). The main task of the trust was to build a road that would connect the Okhotsk coast with the areas of the mine.

On June 14, 1939, the working settlement received the official status of a city. It is on this day that Magadan celebrates the city's birthday.

The work of "Dalstroy"

In order to ensure the timely completion of the tasks that were set for Dalstroy, it was decided to create a North-Eastern prison camp in these places. After all, the population in Magadan itself and its environs was almost completely absent before, so the labor of prisoners was used.

The first batch arrived at Nagaev Bay by steamer. In total, there were at least a hundred people in it. Together with civilian workers and shooters from the paramilitary guard, they formed the basis of the future camp, which became known throughout the country. Already with the opening of navigation in 1932, steamships went one after another. By personal order of Yagoda, Dalstroy was ordered to allocate 16thousands of mandatory he althy prisoners.

Parties of prisoners

True, the plan failed to be fulfilled in the first year. By the end of 1932, only about 12 thousand people reached Kolyma. The winter of 1932/33 proved to be particularly severe in those parts. According to historians, there were heavy losses among the guards, and only one in 50 of the prisoners survived. The fate of the third party, 1934, was more successful - almost everyone survived.

It is in the 34th in Kolyma that the construction of the highway, the river port, settlements adjacent to Magadan itself, and airfields will start. First of all, the work is carried out by the prisoners themselves. In a short time, Dalstroy turns into a large-scale economic organization in the country, which exceeds the tasks for the development of the Kolyma.

Education of the Magadan region

The creation of the Magadan region took place in 1953. This was largely due to the abolition of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Dalstroy, an order to this effect was signed two years earlier. All functions of the security forces were transferred to the relevant structures of Dalstroy.

In fact, after the issuance of this order, the former Sevvostlag ceased to exist precisely as a structure of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs.

After the region was formed, Magadan immediately became its economic, administrative, cultural and scientific center. In 1957, a new law adopted by the Supreme Council played an important role in the development of this region. It was decided to improveorganization of construction and industry management in the Magadan region. After that, Dalstroy itself was abolished, and in its place the Magadan economic region was founded, the leadership of which fell entirely on the shoulders of the Economic Council.

Climate features

In general, the climate of Magadan is subarctic. The terrain is very complex within the city itself, so the climatic differences between the regional center and nearby villages (Sokol, Uptari) are especially noticeable.

Winter in Magadan is long and very cold, the weather is windy and changeable. Summer is short, foggy, cool and damp. The temperature overcomes the mark of 0 degrees only in May, and frosts set in at the very beginning of October.

The warmest month of the year is considered to be August, when during the day the thermometer averages +15 degrees. The coldest month is January, the average temperature is -16.4 degrees. There is never a really strong heat in the city, it is out of the question. At the same time, the frosts here are not as severe as in Eastern Siberia, where in winter it reaches -50. In Magadan, the temperature rarely drops below -25. The absolute minimum recorded in 1954 was only -34.6 degrees, which is comparable even to most cities in the Black Earth region and southern Russia.

Sights of Magadan

Magadan is a young city, so there are not many sights here. One of them is a memorial to the victims of political repressions who served time in camps.in Kolyma. It is known as the "Mask of Sorrow". The sculptor of the memorial is Ernst Neizvestny.

The memorial is made in the form of a human face. Tears are flowing from one eye, and the other has the shape of a window with bars. The monument appeared in 1996 on Steep Sopka.