Nizhny Tagil
Description
Nizhny Tagil is a city in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located 25 km east of the virtual border between Europe and Asia. Population: 361,811 (2010).
Geography
Rivers and ponds take up one third of the city's territory. Nizhny Tagil spans 22 km from north to south and 21 km from east to west. The city is built around Lisya Mountain extinct volcano. This mountain with a watch-tower on its top is a symbol of the city. Another mountain, Medved-Kamen, is located in the northern part of the city and is 100 meters (330 ft) high. High rock wall breaks into the Tagil River.
Neighboring cities include Yekaterinburg 130 km to the south, Serov and Priobye in the north, Perm in the west, and Alapayevsk and Verkhnyaya Salda in the east.
Geology
The altitude of the city varies from 170 to 380 meters (560 to 1,250 ft). This makes Nizhny Tagil one of the rare natural store-rooms on the Earth.[why?] There are many mineral deposits containing 63 elements of the periodic table.
History
The history of Nizhny Tagil begins with the opening of the Vysokogorsky iron ore quarry in 1696. The deposits were particularly rich, and included lodes of pure magnetic iron. The surrounding landscape provided everything needed for a successful and productive mining and smelting operation — rivers for transport, forests for fuel, and suitable climate.
Over the following decades, the city developed as one of the early centers of Russian industrialization, and it has been a major producer of cast iron and steel.
The first Russian steam locomotive was constructed there in 1833, and the father-and-son engineers who developed it, Yefim and Miron Cherepanovs (Черепанов), were in 1956 commemorated by an 8-meter (26 ft) bronze statue (executed by sculptor A. S. Kondratyev and architect A. V. Sotnikov) which stands in the center of the Theatrical Square in the heart of downtown.
According to some sources, the copper for the skin of the Statue of Liberty was mined and refined in Nizhny Tagil.
In early 2007, a mass grave with 30 murdered girls and women was found near Nizhny Tagil. They had been abducted in the city by a prostitution gang between 2002 and 2006. See Nizhny Tagil mass murder (2002-2007). A frightful, fictionalized description of Nizhny Tagil and these murders appears in “The Bourne Sanction,” by Eric Van Lustbader, chapters 28, 30, 34 and 39.
Culture
Nizhny Tagil is known for its decorative trays.
Demidovs' initiatives in the area of culture had a favorable influence on the development of Tagil community into the Urals' most important cultural center. In the 19th century, a library and the museum of natural history and antiquity were opened.
The city has a network of 28 libraries servicing 75,000 readers every year.
Tagil museums include the old regional history museum, the museum of Fine Arts, and a number of new museums opened in the 1990s: the museum of tray painting art, the museum of lifestyle and handicrafts representing the starting point of a new ethnographic complex.
The Demidov Park, a new cultural and historical project, is planned to be built in the city.
Nizhny Tagil has been chosen to host international Urals' Industrial Heritage conferences and workshops.[clarification needed]
City theatrical life is represented by three professional theaters: the National D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak Academic Drama Theater, a puppet theater, community theaters, and the actor department of Nizhny Tagil College of Arts, which has been training actors and actresses for Nizhny Tagil and oblast scenes for two years.[clarification needed]
Several Maximum-security prisons surround the town, and most town residents have close connections to them. When prisoners are released from the prisons, they are not given their train fare, and most remain in the town.
Public health
Medical care is provided in 29 medical care centers that employ 1,100 doctors and 4,500 assistants. Annually, up to 100,000 people are hospitalized, 28,000 surgeries are performed, and up to four million appointments are registered in the city medical care centers.
There is a Yekaterinburg branch of eye microsurgery in Nizhny Tagil. There is obstetrical care. There is a network of municipal and private pharmacies.
Transport
Rail lines and highways connect the city to the rest of the country.[ (October 2015)">clarification needed]
The city is served by the Salka Airport, located 17 km northeast of the city. It was a military base until 1994. Then it become a civil airport.
