Tomsk is a city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast in Russia, on the Tom River. Population: 544,566 (2025);

Founded in 1604, Tomsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. It has six universities, with over 100,000 students, including Tomsk State University, the oldest university in Siberia.

Etymology

The city is named after the Tom River, whose name may derive either from the Ket word toom ("river"), from the Russian word tyomny ("dark"), or from the Turco-Mongol tom (great, major).

History

160px|thumb|left|The "Where Tomsk was Founded" marker at the Tomsk History Museum.

thumb|[[Siberian State Medical University]]

Tomsk originated with a decree by Tsar Boris Godunov in 1604 after , the Tatar duke of Eushta Tatars, asked for the Tsar's protection against Yenisei Kyrgyz and Oirats. The Tsar sent 200 Cossacks under the command of and Gavriil Ivanovich Pisemsky to construct a fortress on the bank of the Tom River, overlooking what would become the city of Tomsk. Toian ceded the land for the fortress to the Tsar.

In 1804, the Imperial Russian government selected Tomsk as the seat of the new Tomsk Governorate, which would include the modern cities of Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, and Krasnoyarsk, as well as the territories now in Eastern Kazakhstan. The new status brought development and the city grew quickly." (or sometimes simply as "Postbox 5") north-west of Tomsk; the new settlement became the home of the Tomsk Nuclear Plant (subsequently renamed the Sibirskaya Nuclear Power Plant), the Soviet Union's first industrial-scale nuclear-power station. Tomsk-7 received municipal status in 1956 and was renamed Seversk in 1992.

Administrative and municipal status

Tomsk serves as the administrative center of the oblast and, within the framework of administrative divisions, it also serves as the administrative center of Tomsky District, even though it is not a part of it. As an administrative division, it is, together with seven rural localities, incorporated separately as Tomsk City Under Oblast Jurisdiction—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts.

City divisions

Tomsk is divided into four city districts: Kirovsky, Leninsky, Oktyabrsky, and Sovetsky.

Geography

Climate

Tomsk has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) barely escaping a subarctic classification. The annual average temperature is . Winters are severe and lengthy, and the lowest recorded temperature was in January 1931. However, the average temperature in January is between and . Summers are somewhat short and quite warm; the average temperature in July is . The total annual rainfall is . In 2006, Tomsk experienced what might have been its first recorded winds of hurricane force, which toppled trees and damaged houses.

Demographics

Politics

thumb|Tomsk City Administration building

thumb|Tomsk, view from the fire-observation tower

Tomsk is governed by a mayor and a 33-member Duma. The current mayor, appointed in 2013, is Ivan Klyayn, a member of The United Russia party.

Of the 33 members, 16 are elected from the eight double mandate districts while 17 are chosen from party lists.

In the October 2005 local elections, United Russia was expected to cruise to a solid victory; however, the Pensioners Party put up a strong showing. The final count was (proportional representation):

  • 19.42% — 5 seats — Pensioners Party
  • 17.85% — 5 seats — United Russia
  • 9.95% — 3 seats — Communist Party
  • 8.57% — 2 seats — Union of Rightist Forces/Yabloko coalition
  • 7.77% — 2 seats — Liberal Democratic Party of Russia
  • 14.67% — Against all candidates

;Double mandates

  • 10 seats — No party affiliation
  • 4 seats — United Russia
  • 1 seat — Pensioners Party
  • 1 seat — Liberal Democratic Party of Russia

Vote

In 2020, supporters of Alexei Navalny won at least 16 seats in Tomsk's 37-seat city council while the pro-Putin United Russia party secured no more than 11 seats.

Economy

thumb|Lenin Square in Tomsk

Energy generation

Tomsk has the oldest electrical grid in Siberia. There are three power stations in the city:

  1. TEC-1 (launched on January 1, 1896)
  2. GRES-2 (launched on May 28, 1945)
  3. TEC-3 (launched on October 29, 1988)

Tomsk consumes more electric energy than it produces. The bulk of the city's electric and thermal energy is produced by the GRES-2 (281 MWt) and TEC-3 (140 MWt) powerplants, belonging to Tomskenergo Inc. Tomsk supplements its energy needs with electricity generated at Seversk.

Education

A large number of educational institutions in the city have contributed to making Tomsk a major center for Russia's IT industry. Tomsk was one of the first cities in Russia to gain access to the Internet, which became available in the early 1990s owing to grants received by universities and scientific cooperation. Tomsk has a number of prominent institutions of higher education, including:

  • Tomsk Polytechnic University, founded in 1896 and opened in 1900, the oldest technical university in Siberia.
  • Tomsk State University, the oldest university in Siberia (founded in 1878, opened in 1888). Located 20 kilometers from the city center, the airport was renovated in 2013. the radio stations Radio Siberia and Echo of Moscow in Tomsk along with several newspapers (Tomskaya Nedelya, Krasnoye Znamya and Vechernii Tomsk).

In April 2006 Tomsk received international media attention as the venue of a major summit on economic cooperation, held in the city between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Notable people

  • Theodore Kuzmich of Tomsk (1776/1777 – 1864), Russian Orthodox saint
  • Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876), anarchist
  • Maria Bochkareva (1889–1920), soldier
  • Nikolai Borschevsky (b. 1965), hockey player
  • Nikolay Burdenko (1876–1946), surgeon
  • Edison Denisov (1929–1996), musician
  • Nikolai Erdman (1900–1970), dramatist
  • Abram Petrovich Gannibal (c. 1696 – 1781), general
  • Leonid Govorov (1897–1955), Marshal of the Soviet Union
  • Murat Kamaletdinov (1928–2013), geologist
  • Nikolay Kamov (1902–1973), engineer
  • Sasha Kaun (b. 1985), basketball player
  • Sergey Kirov (1886–1934), statesman
  • Nikolai Klyuev (1884–1937), poet
  • Vladimir Korolenko (1853–1921), writer
  • Danil Kryshkovets (b. 2007), Counter-Strike 2 player better known as "donk"
  • Valerian Kuybyshev (1888–1935), revolutionary
  • Yegor Ligachyov (1920–2021), statesman
  • Mikhail Mil (1909–1970), helicopter designer
  • Theodor Molien (1861–1941), mathematician
  • Nikolai Nikitin (1907–1973), engineer
  • Vladimir Obruchev (1863–1956), scientist
  • Anatoly Pepelyayev (1891–1938), general
  • Ivan Petlin (17th century), traveler
  • Grigory Potanin (1835–1920), geographer
  • Alexander Radishchev (1749–1802), writer, philosopher
  • Viatcheslav Repin (born 1960), Russian and French author of novels, short stories and essays
  • Nikolay Rukavishnikov (1932–2002), cosmonaut
  • Gustav Shpet (1879–1937), philosopher
  • Pyotr Sobolevsky (1904–1977), actor
  • Konstantin Staniukovich (1843–1903), writer
  • Kanysh Satbayev (1899–1964), geologist
  • Herzl Yankl Tsam (1835–1915), military officer
  • Mikhail Usov (1883–1939), geologist
  • Alexander Volkov (1891–1977), writer
  • Lyubov Yegorova (b. 1966), Olympic cross-country skier
  • Yakov Yurovsky (1878–1938), Bolshevik

International relations

Tomsk is the only non-capital member of the Asian Network of Major Cities 21.

Twin towns and sister cities

Tomsk is twinned with:

  • Monroe, Michigan, United States
  • Toledo, Ohio, United States
  • Tbilisi, Georgia
  • Novorossiysk, Russia
  • Smolensk, Russia
  • Ulsan, South Korea

See also

  • Akademgorodok in Tomsk
  • Church of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary, Tomsk

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

  • Tomsk: Cultural treasure in the taiga
  • Pictures for the 400th anniversary of Tomsk
  • The Pictures of Tomsk on Flickr.com
  • Tomsk live webcams
  • Pictures of Tomsk