Korolyov or Korolev is an industrial city in Moscow Oblast

Moscow Oblast

Moscow Oblast , or Podmoskovye , is a federal subject of Russia . Its area, at , is relatively small compared to other federal subjects, but it is one of the most densely populated regions in the country and, with the 2010 population of 7,092,941, is the second most populous federal subject...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, well known as the cradle of Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 and Russian space exploration

Space exploration

Space exploration is the use of space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....

. It was originally founded as Kaliningrad in 1938 by Vasily Boldyrev, Naum Nosovsky, and Mikhail Loginov

Mikhail Loginov

Mikhail Nikolayevich Loginov  – October 28, 1940, Miskhor, Crimean ASSR) was a prominent Soviet designer of anti-tank, air-defense, and other types of artillery, widely used during World War II....

 as the leading Soviet center for production of anti-tank

Anti-tank warfare

Anti-tank warfare was created by the need to seek technology and tactics to destroy tanks and their supporting infantry during the First World War...

 and air-defense

Anti-aircraft warfare

NATO defines air defence as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground and air based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures. It may be to protect naval, ground and air forces...

 guns.

In 1946, in the aftermath of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 plant was reconstructed for production of rocket

Rocket

A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...

s, launch vehicle

Launch vehicle

In spaceflight, a launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket used to carry a payload from the Earth's surface into outer space. A launch system includes the launch vehicle, the launch pad and other infrastructure....

s, and spacecraft

Spacecraft

A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....

, under the guidance of Russian scientist and academician Sergei Korolev, who envisioned, consolidated and guided the activities of many people in the Soviet space-exploration program.

Soviet space program

The Soviet space program is the rocketry and space exploration programs conducted by the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from the 1930s until its dissolution in 1991...

 The plant later became known as RKK Energia

S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia

OAO S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia , also known as RKK Energiya, is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components...

. Mission Control Center is also located in Korolyov. While the Vostok

Vostok

Vostok may refer to one of the following.Spaceflight*The Soviet Vostok programme of human spaceflight.*The Vostok spacecraft used in that programme and also the basis of a reconnaissance satellite.*The Vostok rocket, used to launch the Vostok spacecraft....

 space vehicle was being developed this research centre was designated as NII-88 or POB 989. Since 1997 Korolyov has hosted the International Space Olympics

International Space Olympics

The International Space Olympics are an annual competition for young people aged from 14 to 18, held in Korolev City Moscow, Russia. Competitions are in a variety of fields including Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, and English Literature, in addition to a space related research...

, an annual competition for young people, to promote space related research.

In July 1996, the city was renamed in commemoration of Sergei Korolev, who died in 1966.

History

In the 12th century, a Slavic

Slavic peoples

The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...

 settlement was located on the site of modern Korolyov. The settlement stood on a junction of trade routes between the Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and Vladimir-Suzdal

Vladimir-Suzdal

The Vladimir-Suzdal Principality or Vladimir-Suzdal Rus’ was one of the major principalities which succeeded Kievan Rus' in the late 12th century and lasted until the late 14th century. For a long time the Principality was a vassal of the Mongolian Golden Horde...

 principalities. After the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, the region was in decline. In the 18th century, one of the first textile factories

Textile manufacturing

Textile manufacturing is a major industry. It is based in the conversion of three types of fibre into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. These are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. Cotton remains the most important natural fibre, so is treated in depth...

 in Russia was established here.

In 1924, the first OGPU

State Political Directorate

The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...

 working commune in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 was established here. In 1938, the town of Kaliningrad was founded in place of the Kalininsky settlement near an artillery plant, which had previously been evacuated from Leningrad

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

.

The area was a place of elite dacha

Dacha

Dacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes often located in the exurbs of Soviet and post-Soviet cities. Cottages or shacks serving as family's main or only home are not considered dachas, although many purpose-built dachas are recently being converted for year-round residence...

s at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Many famous people, such as Konstantin Stanislavski

Konstantin Stanislavski

Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski , was a Russian actor and theatre director. Building on the directorially-unified aesthetic and ensemble playing of the Meiningen company and the naturalistic staging of Antoine and the independent theatre movement, Stanislavski organized his realistic...

, Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...

, Valery Bryusov

Valery Bryusov

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov was a Russian poet, prose writer, dramatist, translator, critic and historian. He was one of the principal members of the Russian Symbolist movement.-Biography:...

, Boris Pasternak

Boris Pasternak

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...

, Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Andreyevna Gorenko , better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova , was a Russian and Soviet modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.Harrington p11...

, Isaac Levitan

Isaac Levitan

Isaac Ilyich Levitan was a classical Russian landscape painter who advanced the genre of the "mood landscape".-Youth:...

, Pavel Tretyakov

Pavel Tretyakov

Pavel Mikhaylovich Tretyakov was a Russian businessman, patron of art, collector, and philanthropist who gave his name to the Tretyakov Gallery and Tretyakov Drive in Moscow. His brother S.M. Tretyakov was also a famous patron of art and a philanthropist....

, Marina Tsvetaeva

Marina Tsvetaeva

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was a Russian and Soviet poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russian literature. She lived through and wrote of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Moscow famine that followed it. In an attempt to save her daughter Irina from...

, and Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin 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 , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

, lived here.

Demographics

As of 2002, Korolyov was the seventh-largest city in Moscow Oblast, with a population of In 2007, it became the fourth-largest one in the oblast with a population of 173,600, mostly because of an influx of new inhabitants considering it one of the most attractive places to live near Moscow. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 183,452.

Economy

The main enterprise of the city is the RKK Energia

S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia

OAO S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia , also known as RKK Energiya, is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components...

, but there are several kinds of industry in the city. This naukograd

Naukograd

A naukograd , meaning "science city", is a formal term for towns with high concentration of research and development facilities in Russia and the Soviet Union, some specifically built by the Soviet Union for these purposes. Some of the towns were secret, and were part of a larger system of closed...

 (science city) is the place in which was built the first Youth Residential Complex

Youth Residential Complex

Youth Residential Complexes were housing projects intended for young families and constructed by their future tenants themselves, subsidized by industrial enterprises. This approach existed since 1971 and it was a mass movement until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It was an attempt to...

 in USSR. Another famous company located in the city is OAO Kompozit, which is engaged in the field of materials science.

Sports

The bandy

Bandy

Bandy is a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.The rules of the game have many similarities to those of association football: the game is played on a rectangle of ice the same size as a football field. Each team has 11 players,...

 club Vympel http://www.bandy-vimpel.ru/ plays in the second-highest division of the Russian Bandy League.

External links

Official website of Korolyov