Dzerzhinsk, Russia

Dzerzhinsk (Nizhny Novgorod region) is the second largest and most populous city in the region, located near Nizhny Novgorod, about 30 km away. It is the center of the administrative unit of the Nizhny Novgorod region, an urban district — the city of Dzerzhinsk. It was named in 1929 after the name of the Russian revolutionary and chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission F. E. Dzerzhinsky. (The Commission had very great rights and opportunities, the progenitor of the Soviet KGB). The city is located on the banks of the Oka River, almost in the center of the European part of Russia, and is connected to the country by the railway and the federal highways Moscow - Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan - Nizhny Novgorod. The international airport is located almost at the same distance from Dzerzhinsk as from the regional center. Dzerzhinsk is an industrial city with a good personnel reserve, with high energy security. All these factors make it attractive for business, and serious investors have paid attention to the features and potential of Dzerzhinsk. 2006 has already become a turning point for the city, and since 2007, solid investments have begun to come into the Dzerzhinsk industry

At the place where the city of Dzerzhinsk is located, people have settled for a long time, in its vicinity there are sites of ancient people living on the banks of the Oka 3500 years ago. In the 17th and 18th centuries there were small villages here - Kolodkino, Babino, Chernoe and others. Among them is the small settlement of Rastyapino. The area was called by the name of the Black River flowing here — Chernorechye, and the parish was called – Chernoretskaya. Chernorechye was the name of the area on the left bank of the Oka, upstream from Nizhny Novgorod. The water in the river was black, as there was a high content of peat in the soils along which the riverbed ran. At the end of the 40s, due to intensive peat extraction and high water consumption for the needs of factories under construction here, the river dried up. The village of Rastyapino was first mentioned in documents of 1606, when the village was transferred to Dudin monastery. In 1752, lands in the vicinity of the village of Cherny were granted to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. "Pyra, the village of Chernoe, the villages to it: Rastyapino, Babushkino, Babino, Kolodkino, Yuryevets, Igumnovo, the villages of Dubenki and Zhelnino”"

In 1915, a plant of mineral acids was built

In 1916, the Okhta Powder Factory was evacuated from Petrograd to Rastyapino, away from the hostile western borders. In the shortest possible time, production started at a new location — in October 1917, products were already being produced. (now - FKP "Plant named after Y. M. Sverdlov"). In those distant years, the Chernorechens, who had lived for centuries by forest and river crafts, accepted the appearance of unusual enterprises with obvious displeasure. The mineral acids plant, which was later renamed the Chernorechensk Chemical Plant, employed mostly refugees and prisoners of war. And at the former Okhtinsky – workers and specialists who arrived with the plant. They settled near the enterprises themselves, as they could and where they could.

Until 1927, the history of the city of Dzerzhinsk developed near the village of Rastyapino. In 1929, the construction of the central square of the city began, on June 22, 1929, the working village of Rastyapino, by popular request of residents, was given a new name, the working village of Dzerzhinsk.A. F. Kusakin is appointed the chief architect of the construction of Dzerzhinsk . It is his projects that define the individuality of the city to this day. These are residential buildings, ensembles of squares, and avenues. The architectural symbol of Dzerzhinsk has become a house with a spire, on Chkalov Avenue. In 1930, the workers' settlement received the status of a city.

Life in the rear during wartime was strictly regulated. So, the regional committee of the CPSU (b) approved which holidays and events should be celebrated, controlled the content of all articles in the city newspaper. Business correspondence was strictly censored and private letters were subject to mandatory inspection. All radios were seized from the townspeople. However, this happened in all the rear cities of the country. The main concern of the city authorities was to provide conditions for the normal operation of twelve military hospitals, the placement of a considerable number of evacuated enterprises and their employees, and the supply of fuel to the city for the winter,

prevention of epidemics and mass diseases, strict control of the distribution of food cards. The 1291-th anti-aircraft artillery Regiment was engaged in the anti-aircraft defense of Dzerzhinsk during the war. But the city escaped bombing, although Gorky was repeatedly raided by enemy bomber aircraft. Lying just to the west of Dzerzhinsk, the German pilots did not seem to notice. There were rumors that the owners of large chemical concerns in Germany had specifically agreed with Hitler to preserve the entire Dzerzhinsky chemical complex intact in order to use it after the victory. And perhaps, by doing so, they brought Germany's defeat in the war closer. With the beginning of the war, all Dzerzhinsky enterprises in the shortest possible time were rebuilt to work in wartime mode. It was necessary to significantly increase output at 12359 existing capacities, to create new productions focused on the needs of the front. And the residents of Dzerzhinsk managed to achieve this – during the war years, local factories increased their gross output three and a half times compared to the pre-war, 1940. Already in 1941, the production of unique products began, nowhere except Dzerzhinsk, which was not produced in the USSR. In June 1941, an installation for the production of self-igniting liquid "KS" was launched at the Chernorechensk chemical plant, which turned out to be super effective in the fight against enemy tanks. According to films and books about the war, many people remember bottles with the famous "Molotov cocktail", from which German equipment literally burned, with a blue flame. Dzerzhinsk sent explosives, a combustible mixture, shells for "Katyusha", anti-tank mines to the front. Up to 3 million were produced per month . shells, mines, bombs. The heroism of the people who worked in such conditions was no less than the heroism of the front-line soldiers. No wonder more than five hundred residents of Dzerzhinsk were awarded high state awards during the war years. The price of victory over fascism turned out to be very high, and Dzerzhintsy made a significant contribution to this victory. Twenty-eight thousand residents of Dzerzhinsk fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, about ten thousand of them died and went missing. More than nine thousand residents of Dzerzhinsk were awarded military orders and medals. Twenty-six of them were aw

arded the highest award - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Six Heroes died at the front. The names of three of them are the streets of the city – Galkin, Samokhvalov, Sitnov.

During the fifteen post-war years, the pace of industrial and housing construction in Dzerzhinsk was truly impressive. During this time, a chemical engineering plant (now Himmash), a bakery, and a sewing factory began to gain momentum. Large-scale construction of new production facilities at large chemical enterprises allowed an eight-fold increase in industrial output compared to the pre-war 1940. There were also new apartment buildings (two billion rubles were invested in housing construction after the war), the first building of the drama theater, built in 1948. According to the All-Union Population Census in 1959, there were 164,337 residents in Dzerzhinsk. The rapid increase in the number of citizens required appropriate socio-cultural provision of their lives. Therefore, in the same years, a new railway station, a new music school building were built in the city, two new secondary specialized educational institutions were opened: a chemical and mechanical college and a music college. In 1959, the magnificent Chemists' Palace of Culture opened its doors to the residents of Dzerzhinsk.

A developed system of professional, secondary and higher education has been created in Dzerzhinsk. There are three vocational schools in the city, eight secondary vocational schools – a technical college, a music college, a chemical college named after the Red Army, a polytechnic college, an industrial and commercial college, a pedagogical college, a comprehensive college of computer science, a college of economics. Higher education can be obtained at the Modern Humanitarian Institute, the Dzerzhinsky Polytechnic Institute, the Institute of Modern Economics. The Volga-Vyatka Academy of Public Administration is recruiting applicants here, the St. Petersburg Institute of Foreign Economic Relations, Economics and Law, and the Nizhny Novgorod State University have opened their branches. Lobachevsky. All these educational institutions continue to train specialists for the Dzerzhinsk industry.