This city, located on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, is home to less than a hundred thousand inhabitants today. But millions of Russians and former residents of the Soviet Union are familiar with the history of Magadan firsthand. It was here that forced labor camps were located, including the famous "Sevvostlag".
Development of new territories
The enormous wealth of Siberia has been known for a long time; in the 17th century, the active development of these territories began. But Russian explorers reached Chukotka only at the end of the XIX - beginning. XX centuries. On the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, prospecting expeditions were set up, the purpose of which was to discover gold deposits. Several such trips had no results.
In 1915, happiness smiled at the prospector Shafigullin, who had the nickname Boriska, he was the first to discover gold in Kolyma. True, industrial development began only in 1926, after all the revolutionary events and the end of the Civil War.
If we talk about the history of Magadan briefly, then a detailed study of the Kolyma territories began only in the late 1920s, at the same time it was decided to build a new settlement. The main stages of the city's formation can be noted:
- 1929 - foundation of the village of Magadan;
- 1939 - Magadan received the status of a city (date of foundation);
- 1954 - the city becomes a regional center.
Additionally, it can be noted that in 1930-1934. Magadan served as the center of the Okhotsk-Evenk National District. There is one interesting fact in the history of Magadan, when the number of inhabitants almost instantly quadrupled. This happened after the arrival in the city of soldiers demobilized from the Far Eastern Army in 1931.
Life before and after World War II
The main inhabitants of Magadan before the war were geologists and miners. The difficulty was in the absence of normal roads. The use of the Olskoy pack trail and rafting along the local rivers took a lot of time and effort. In November 1931, it was decided to create "Dalstroy" - a trust engaged in the construction of industrial roads from the mines to the coast. Later, the trust was transferred to the leadership of the OGPU, now the labor force arrived in the right quantities and without delay. It was the hands of the prisoners who built the Kolyma highway, river ports, airfields, villages and Magadan, the "capital" of the camp region.
And only after Stalin's death "Dalstroy" was removed from the structure of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. A new administrative-territorial entity appeared here - the Magadan Region. From this moment a new page in the life of the city as an economic, scientific, cultural center begins.
