Magadan

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Magadan (English) Магадан (Russian)

Magadan vicinity from the US Defense Mapping Agency (1978)
Coordinates 59°34′N 150°48′E / 59.567, 150.8Coordinates: 59°34′N 150°48′E / 59.567, 150.8
Coat of Arms	Flag

City Day: One of the days in July
Administrative status
Federal subject In jurisdiction of Administrative center of	Magadan Oblast Magadan Oblast Magadan Oblast
Local self-government
Charter	Charter of Magadan
Municipal status	Urban okrug
Mayor	Vladimir Pechyony
Legislative body	City Duma
Area
Area	180 km² (69.5 sq mi)
Population (as of the 2002 Census)
Population - Rank - Density	99,399 inhabitants 169th 552.2/km² (1,430.2/sq mi)
Events
Founded	1930s
Town status	July 14, 1939
Other information
Postal code	n/a
Dialing code	+7 4132
Official website
http://www.magadangorod.ru/

Magadan (Russian: Магада́н) is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. In is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast (since 1953), in the Russian Far East. Founded in the 1930s on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the town status in 1939. It lies in Nagayevo Bay in the Gulf of Tauisk. Population: 107,500 (2006 est.);^{[citation needed]} 99,399 (2002 Census);^[1] 151,652 (1989 Census).^[2] Ship building and fishing are the major industries. The town has a seaport (fully navigable from May to December) and a small international airport, Sokol Airport. There is also a small airport nearby, Magadan 13. The unpaved Kolyma Highway leads from Magadan to the rich gold-mining region of the upper Kolyma River and then on to Yakutsk.

1 History
2 Economy
3 Culture
4 Climate
5 Long Way Round
6 Famous people
7 Twinning
8 Bibliography
9 Footnotes
10 External links

[edit] History

Magadan was created in 1933 by Eduard Berzin, the first head of Dalstroy, to serve as a port for exporting gold and other metals mined in the Kolyma region.^{[citation needed]} Its size and population grew quickly as facilities were rapidly developed for the expanding mining activities in the area.

During the Stalin era, Magadan was a major transit center for prisoners sent to labor camps. The operations of Dalstroy, a vast and brutal forced-labor gold-mining concern, were the main economic driver of the city for many decades during Soviet times.

Of the 12,000 Poles sent to Magadan and environs between 1940 and 1941, most POWs, only 583 men returned [1], released in 1942 to join the Polish free force of Polish II Corps under General Wladyslaw Anders. WWII survivors became residents of the U.S., Britain and other countries.

In May 1944, U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace's official visit [2] failed to understand the true nature of Magadan. He took an instant liking to his secret policeman host, admired handiwork done by prisoners, and later glowingly pronounced the city "a combination TVA and Hudson's Bay Company". [3]

Further details of this period are given in the article on Kolyma.

[edit] Economy

Nagayevo, Magadan's port, painted by the Ukrainian artist Nikolai Getman (who was a prisoner from 1946 to 1953 in forced labor camps in Siberia and Kolyma)

Magadan is very isolated. The nearest major city is Yakutsk, 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) away via an unpaved road which is best used in the winter, especially since there is no bridge over the Lena River at Yakutsk (the choices are: ferry from Nizhny Bestyakh in the summer, when rest of the road may not be passable due to standing water, or over the ice in the dead of winter).

The principal sources of income for the local economy are gold mining and fisheries. Recently, gold production has declined^[3] although future prospects look good. Fishing production, although improving from year to year, is still well below the allocated quotas, apparently as a result of an ageing fleet.^[4] Other local industries include pasta and sausage plants and a distillery.^[5] Although farming is difficult owing to the harsh climate, there are many public and private farming enterprises.

Conditions in Magadan have deteriorated since the 1970s when gold mining provided high levels of investment and employment. In recent years, many factories and mining interests have closed, resulting in high levels of unemployment and alcoholism and huge declines in the local population.

Furthermore, foreign investment has suffered from disputes of ownership despite very attractive prospects for mining gold, tin, silver and coal, not to mention petroleum and natural gas resources in the region.

The severe climate and poorly developed infrastructure are partly to blame but the difficult transition from Soviet times has led to the collapse of a number of companies with the result that many inhabitants have left the region.

Recently, there do seem to have been renewed efforts to encourage foreign investment which could lead to improvements in the economy. Indeed, on a visit to Magadan in November 2005, President Putin supported the extension of special tax advantages for the region in order to encourage gold exploitation.

[edit] Culture

Church of the Nativity

The city has a number of cultural institutions including the Regional Museum of Anthropology, a geological museum a regional library, and a university. The city has the enormous new Orthodox Cathedral Church of the Trinity, a recently completed Roman Catholic Church of the Nativity and the Mask of Sorrow memorial, a huge sculpture in memory of Stalin's victims, designed by Ernst Neizvestny.

[edit] Climate

The climate of Magadan is subarctic. Winters are prolonged and very cold, with up to six months of sub-zero temperatures, so that the soil remains permanently frozen. Permafrost and tundra cover most of the region. The growing season is only one hundred days long. Average temperatures on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk range from -8 °F (-22 °C) in January to 54 °F (12 °C) in July. Average temperatures in the interior range from -36 °F (-38 °C) in January to 60 °F (16 °C) in July.

[edit] Long Way Round

Magadan was the focal point of the Long Way Round motorcycle journey made by Ewan McGregor, Charley Boorman and their team. Although their ultimate destination was New York, they frequently noted how reaching the Russian city was the ultimate measure of success or failure for their adventure. Despite encountering swollen rivers, broken bridges and virtually impassable roads as they travelled through Siberia, they were ultimately able to ride the "Road of Bones" into Magadan, and flew from there to Anchorage, Alaska from where they continued to New York. Recalling his final day in Magadan before leaving for America, McGregor wrote:

"Magadan, Siberia. The place that had been in my thoughts and dreams for two years, like a mythical city forever beyond my reach. I wanted to capture it, somehow hold on to it and take a part of it with me when we began the long journey home."

[edit] Famous people

Vadim Kozin (1903–1994), a popular Russian tenor in the 1930s. Sentenced to the Kolyma camps in 1944, he became a resident of Magadan where he died.
Nikolai Getman (1917-2004), Ukrainian artist, remembered for his paintings depicting the horrors of the Kolyma gulag. He organised the Magadan Artists' Union and was director of the Magadan section of the Arts Foundation of the RSFSR from 1963 to 1966.
Valentin Tsvetkov (1948-2002), former governor (from 1996) of Magadan Oblast, gunned down in Moscow in October 2002, apparently for issues involving fish quotas^[6].
Inna Korobkina (b. 1981), Russian actress, famously known for her appearance in the 2004 film Dawn of The Dead

[edit] Twinning

Anchorage - Alaska, United States

[edit] Bibliography

McGregor, E & Boorman, C: Long Way Round. Time Warner Books, 2004. ISBN 0-7515-3680-6
David J. Nordlander: Origins of a Gulag Capital: Magadan and Stalinist Control in the Early 1930s, Slavic Review, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 791-812