RUSSIA - Ulyanovsk : Monument of I.N. Ulyanov, father of Lenin

Location of ULYANOVSK OBLAST in RUSSIA :

Location of ULYANOVSK in the OBLAST :

ULYANOVSK

Ulyanovsk (Russian : Улья́новск, formerly Simbirsk : Симби́рск), is a city on the Volga River in Russia, 893 km east from Moscow. It is the administrative center of Ulyanovsk Oblast, and is the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin (originally named Ulyanov), for whom it is named.

Simbirsk was founded in 1648 by the boyar Bogdan Khitrovo. The fort of "Simbirsk" (alternatively "Sinbirsk") was strategically placed on a hill on the Western shore of the Volga River. The fort was meant to protect the eastern frontier of the Russian Empire from the nomadic tribes and to establish a permanent Imperial presence in the area.

In 1668 Simbirsk withstood a month-long siege by a 20,000-strong army led by rebel Cossack commander Stenka Razin. Also in Simbirsk another country rebel - Yemelyan Pugachev was imprisoned before execution. At the time Simbirsk possessed a wooden kremlin which was destroyed by a fire during the 18th century.

As the eastern border of the Russian Empire was rapidly pushed into Siberia, Simbirsk rapidly lost its strategic importance, but nonetheless began to develop into an important regional center. Simbirsk was designated a city in 1796.

In the summer of 1864 Simbirsk was severely damaged by fire, however the city was quickly rebuilt and continued to grow. The Holy Trinity Cathedral was constructed in a restrained Neoclassical style between 1827–1841. The population of Simbirsk reached 26,000 by 1856 and 43,000 by 1897.

In 1924, the city was renamed Ulyanovsk in honor of Vladimir Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, who was born in Simbirsk in 1870. Another Russian political leader, Alexander Kerensky was also born in Simbirsk.

The construction of the Kuybyshev hydroelectric plant (completed in 1957) 200 km downstream of Ulyanovsk resulted in the flooding of significant tracts of land both north and south of Ulyanovsk and increasing the width of the Volga by up to 35 km in some places. To this day, some populated neighborhoods of Ulyanovsk remain well below the level of the reservoir, protected from flooding by a dam: it is estimated that its catastrophic failure would submerge parts of the city comprising around 5% of its total population with as much as 10 m of water.

During the Soviet period Ulyanovsk was an important tourist center, drawing visitors from around the USSR because of its revolutionary importance.

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Ilya Nikolayevich ULYANOV

Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov (Илья Николаевич Ульянов in Russian) (1831— 1886, Simbirsk) was a Russian public figure in the field of public education and a teacher. He was the father of Aleksandr Ulyanov and Vladimir Lenin who became the Bolshevik revolutionary leader and founder of the Soviet Union.

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Vladimir Ilyich LENIN

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (22 April 1870 – 21 January 1924) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years (1917–1924), as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a socialist economic system.

As a politician, Vladimir Lenin was a persuasive orator, as a political scientist his extensive theoretic and philosophical developments of Marxism produced Marxism–Leninism, the pragmatic Russian application of Marxism.

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Postcard sent by Yulia, as "PrincessYulianna"
Postcrossing - Reference RU002

ULYANOVSK
Monument of Ilya Nikolayevich ULYANOV
Sculptor : M. MANIZER, architect : I. ROZHIN

спасибо