Kuznetsk Basin
Encyclopedia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, 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...
, is one of the largest coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
mining areas in the world, covering an area of around 27000 square miles (69,929.7 km²). It lies in the Kuznetsk Depression
Kuznetsk Depression
Kuznetsk Depression is located among mountains of Southern Siberia: Kuznetsk Alatau to the Northeast, Salair Ridge to the Southwest, and Mountainous Shoria to the South. Elevation up to 500 m, area: 70,000 km², length: 400 km, width: 120 km....
between Tomsk
Tomsk
Tomsk is a city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Tom River. One of the oldest towns in Siberia, Tomsk celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2004...
and Novokuznetsk
Novokuznetsk
Novokuznetsk is a city in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. It serves as the administrative center of Novokuznetsky District, but it is not administratively a part of it...
in the basin of the Tom River
Tom River
Tom is a river in Russia, a right tributary of the Ob. Its length is 540 miles . Its source is in the Abakan mountains , and it flows northward through the Kuznetsk Basin...
. From the south it borders the Abakan Range
Abakan Range
Abakan Range is a metamorphic rock mountain range in the Southwestern Siberia, Russia: length: , elevation: up to . It is mostly covered by taiga, up to , followed by mountainous tundra....
, from the west Salair Ridge
Salair Ridge
Salair Ridge is an eroded plateau-type highland in the Southwestern Siberia, Russia, particularly in Altai Krai, Kemerovo and Novosibirsk Oblast. It is a natural continuation of Altai Mountains and separates the Kuznetsk Depression from the Ob River Plain to the southwest. See Geography of...
, and Kuznetsky Alatau from the north.
It possesses some of the most extensive coal deposits anywhere in the world; coal-bearing seams extend over an area of 10309 square miles (26,700.2 km²) and reach to a depth of 5905 feet (1,799.8 m). Overall coal deposits are estimated at 725 billion tonnes. The region's other industries, such as machine construction, chemicals and metallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
, are based on coal mining.
During the Soviet era, the Kuznetsk Basin was second only to Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
's Donets Basin
Donets Basin
Donbas or Donbass , full rarely-used name Donets Basin , is a historical, economic and cultural region of eastern Ukraine. Originally a coal mining area, it has become a heavily industrialised territory suffering from urban decay and industrial pollution.-Geography:Donbas covers three...
in terms of regional coal production. Iron smelting began there as early as 1697 and coal was discovered in 1721, although it was not systematically mined until 1851. The late 19th century industrialisation of Russia prompted a rapid growth in the area's industries, which was further boosted by the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...
. Under Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's First Five-Year Plan
First Five-Year Plan
The First Five-Year Plan, or 1st Five-Year Plan, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a list of economic goals that was designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1928 and 1932, making the nation both militarily and industrially self-sufficient. "We are fifty or a hundred...
, the Ural-Kuznetsk industrial combine was formed in the early 1930s. It became a centre for the production of iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
and steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
, zinc
Zinc
Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
, aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
, machinery and chemicals, with raw materials and finished products being shipped to and from sites in the Kuzbas and Urals.
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....
's economic problems in the late 1980s prompted strikes by the region's coal miners in 1989 and 1990, seriously weakening the reformist government of Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
. Following the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the planned economy
Planned economy
A planned economy is an economic system in which decisions regarding production and investment are embodied in a plan formulated by a central authority, usually by a government agency...
, the region's industries faced a further crisis. Since then, however, its significance has grown. The Kuzbass now extracts more than 30 percent of Russia's total coal production and is the main fuel and energy base for eastern Russia.
Administratively, the Kuznetsk Basin lies in Kemerovo Oblast
Kemerovo Oblast
Kemerovo Oblast , also known as Kuzbass after the Kuznetsk Basin, is a federal subject of Russia , located in southwestern Siberia, where the West Siberian Plain meets the South Siberian mountains...
with its capital in the city of Kemerovo
Kemerovo
Kemerovo is an industrial city in Russia, situated on the Tom River, east-northeast of Novosibirsk. It is the administrative center of Kemerovo Oblast, located in the major coal mining region of the Kuznetsk Basin...
. Other major cities in the area include Anzhero-Sudzhensk
Anzhero-Sudzhensk
Anzhero-Sudzhensk is a town in the Kuznetsk Basin in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. The town, which was formed out of the amalgamation of the Anzherka and Sudzhenka settlements, is located to the north of the oblast's administrative center of Kemerovo and to the east of the Tom River. It is on the route...
, Leninsk-Kuznetsky
Leninsk-Kuznetsky
Leninsk-Kuznetsky , known as Kolchugino until 1925, is a city in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia, located on both banks of the Inya River . Population: 128,000 ; 83,000 ; 20,000 ....
, Kiselyovsk
Kiselyovsk
Kiselyovsk is a town in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. Population: -External links:*...
, and Prokopyevsk
Prokopyevsk
Prokopyevsk is a city in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. Population: It was founded in 1918 as the settlement of Prokopyevsky from the existing villages of Monastyrskoye and Prokopyevskoye, and was granted town status and renamed in 1931....
.
See also
- Kuzbass Autonomous Industrial ColonyKuzbass Autonomous Industrial ColonyThe Kuzbass Autonomous Industrial Colony was a Soviet experiment in workers' control during the New Economic Policy, based in Kuzbass, Siberia.-Further reading:...