Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Tyumen Region
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December 2007 –Kommersant – Tyumen Region was formed on August 14, 1944, and is one of Russia's largest regions. It has an area of 1.4 million km2 (8.4% of Russia's total area), which is equivalent to the combined areas of Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain. The region has a population of more than 3 million.
People of working age make up a large percentage (67%) of the population, whereas pensioners make up only 12%. This distribution is the result of high population growth in the younger age groups due to migration in the years when the oil and gas industry was forming and developing. The average age of the region's population in 2002 was 33.7 years (vs. 37.8 years for the Russian Federation).
Tyumen Region is Russia's third-largest region in area and thirteenth-largest in population. It is also one of Russia's most multinational regions, with representatives of 125 nationalities, including 26 small northern ethnic groups. Russians form the largest group, followed by Ukrainians (8.4%), Tatars (7.3%), Belarussians (1.6%), Bashkirs (1.3%), and Chuvashes (1%). Northern minorities living in the region number 51 900, or one-third of their total population in the Russian Federation.
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Two autonomous districts, Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets, formed on December 10, 1930, are part of the region. The Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District has an area of 523 100 km2 and a population of 1 350 300 people. The city of Khanty-Mansiysk (pop. 36 000) is the district center. The Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District has an area of 750 300 km2 and a population of 500 500 people. Its capital is the city of Salekhard (pop. 31 200).
There are 28 cities in the region, the largest of which (besides Tyumen) are Surgut (pop. 272 300), Nizhnevartovsk (238 700), Tobolsk (117 000), Nefteyugansk (97 500), Noyabrsk (105 000), Novy Urengoi (101 700), and Ishim (63 100).
Tyumen Region occupies a large part of the West Siberian Plain and in fact divides Russia into two large territories: a western part consisting of the Urals and European Russia and an eastern, Asiatic part consisting of Siberia and the Far East.
Extreme climatic conditions are characteristic of the region, since 90% of its territory belongs to Far Northern or equivalent districts.
Nature in Tyumen land is rich and varied, owing to the region's location in three different natural climatic zones: Arctic tundra in the Far North changes southward to typical tundra and forest tundra, then to taiga, and finally to forest steppe and steppe in the south.
The region has a northern border on the Karsk Sea and has an extensive network of deep rivers, a large number of lakes, and an abundance of underground water, which reaches the surface in the form of springs in some places.
The region's largest rivers, the Ob and Irtysh, are navigable. The lakes and rivers in the region are noted for high fish yields and number of valuable fish species. There are sizable stocks of Siberian sturgeon, sterlet, white salmon, and various members of the whitefish/salmon family (e.g., whitefish, vendace, muksun, and tugun).
A large part of the region (43 million hectares) is covered with forests. Birch and aspen are the predominant trees of the forest steppe in the south; pine, cedar, larch, fir, and spruce predominate in the north; and alder, birch, and willow grow in the bogs. Berries (lingonberry, blueberry, cranberry, bilberry, and stone berry) and mushrooms grow abundantly in the forests. Fur-bearing animals (mink, white fox, red fox, sable, squirrel, muskrat, and hare), hoofed animals (moose and wild boar), the brown bear, waterfowl (ducks and geese), and game birds (partridge, capercaillie, black grouse, and hazel grouse) are of great commercial importance.
The region also has considerable land resources, including more than 4 million hectares of agricultural land and vast reindeer pastures (53 million hectares). Most of the arable land is concentrated in the more favorable southern part of the region, where the climatic conditions allow the cultivation of grain, potatoes, staple vegetables, and feed crops. In northern districts, farmland consists mainly of pasture and hayfields.
HISTORY
Humans began settling Western Siberia 15 000-20 000 years ago at the end of the Paleolithic period. More extensive settlement of the territory of Tyumen Region occurred during the Mesolithic period (8000-10 000 years ago). Archeological finds show that hunting and fishing were widespread at this time, and more sophisticated implements appeared, e.g., bows and arrows, spears, cutting tools, axes, and augers. Settlement of the Lower Ob and Polar regions took place in the Neolithic period. Pottery making continued to develop right up to the 13th century A.D., and metallurgy and metalworking appeared. There was extensive trade with both East and West. Formation of the ethnic groups inhabiting Tyumen Region was largely completed by the 16th century.
Khanty and Mansi (Vogul), Nenets (Yurak Samoyed), and Selkup (Ostyak Samoyed) tribes originally inhabited Western Siberia. Turkic tribes that would later form the ethnic group of Siberian Tatars arrived in the southern part of Tyumen Region around 1000 A.D.
The Siberian Khanate with its capital in Sibir (Isker) arose in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Siberian khans waged numerous wars with the Astrakhan Khanate and the Nogai Horde and carried out raids into Russian territories. Kuchum, who became khan in 1563, succeeded in uniting formerly hostile Tatar settlements and subjugating the Vogul and Samoyed tribes. Kuchum also had plans to expel the Russian population from the area around the Urals.
In order to defend their territories against the Tatars, the Stroganov family of Ural merchants and industrialists hired the services of Ermak Timofeevich's Cossack brigade. The Cossacks began a campaign against the Siberian Khanate in 1582, and on October 23, 1582, they destroyed the khan's forces in a battle on Chuvashia Cape. The Cossacks' Siberian campaign lasted four years and severely undermined the main Tatar forces. Even after Ermak's death in 1585, the Khanate was unable to recover its former strength. The campaign thus opened the way for Russian migration to Siberia.
In 1586, army commanders (voevody) V. Sukin and I. Myasny began building a fortified town on the Tura River, which later became Tyumen, the first Russian city in Siberia. The following year, a relative of the governor, D. Chulkov, founded the fortified town of Tobolsk. Berezovo and Surgut were founded in 1593 and 1594. As the land routes to Eastern Siberia expanded, the number of Russian cities and villages also grew: the city of Yalutorovsk was founded in 1630, followed by the villages of Vagai (1633), Isetskoe (1650), and Abatskoe (1680).
In 1590, Tobolsk became the main city of Siberia. Farm production increased, industries involved in processing agricultural products developed, and trades appeared in the cities. By the 17th century, Tobolsk and Tyumen, as commercial and trade centers, had reached the level of the cities of European Russia. Construction of the first stone buildings east of the Urals began in Tobolsk in the late 17th century. The only Kremlin in Eastern Russia was also built in Tobolsk.
One of the distinctive elements of life in Western Siberia was political exile. "Prisoners of State" were banished to the territory of Tyumen Region starting in the early 17th century. Among them were Abram Petrov (Hannibal) and Archpriest Avvakum, who were exiled to Tobolsk, and A.D. Menshikov, who was sent to Berezovo. In the first quarter of the 19th century, 36 Decembrists were exiled to Tobolsk and Yalutorovsk in Tobolsk Province. While in exile, the Decembrists made a great contribution to the intellectual life of the territory by establishing a school for commoners in Yalutorovsk, the first women's school in Siberia in Tobolsk, and other institutions.
Many members of other Russian liberation movements, such as writers Aleksandr Radishchev and Fedor Dostoevsky, and I.V. Petrashevsky, also passed through Tobolsk.
Tobolsk was the administrative, cultural, and spiritual center of Siberia in the 18th and 19th centuries. In addition to secular institutions, a system of religious schools developed; and for a long time, the school for higher clergy and the seminary were the only such schools beyond the Urals. The first literary magazine in Siberia, Irtysh, began publishing in Tobolsk in 1789, and a theater was opened.
Tyumen was the region's commercial and industrial center. Owing to its location at the crossroads of trade routes between West and East, Tyumen turned in the "Gateway to Siberia." Settlers from European Russia passed through Tyumen after the abolition of serfdom in 1861 and during the years of Stolypin's agrarian reforms. By the end of the 19th century, industries such as food processing, especially buttermaking, shipbuilding, tanning, glassmaking, and timber processing were well established in the province. Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway resulted in further industrial development. Some of the outstanding people of Russian history were natives of Tobolsk Province, for example, the great chemist and developer of the periodic table Dmitry Mendeleev (Tobolsk), poet, storyteller, and author of The Little Humpbacked Horse P.P. Ershov (Tobolsk), and favorite of the last Russian emperor Grigory Rasputin (Pokrovskoe).
Tobolsk Province did not escape the events of the Revolution of 1917; however, there were no armed conflicts or any major political actions. After October 1917, power in the province passed to the Socialist Revolutionaries. The Bolshevik group played a minor role, coming to power in the province only at the end of February 1918, when five Red Guard detachments from Ekaterinburg and Omsk were dispatched to Tyumen, Yaltorovsk, and Ishim and occupied the railway station, post and telegraph offices, banks, and other buildings. The cities were placed under martial law, and the local bourgeoisie were forced to pay an indemnity. The provincial capital was moved from Tobolsk to Tyumen. A Provincial Soviet was established on April 3, 1918, with Bolshevik N.M. Nemtsov as its first chairman.
Emperor Nicholas II and his family were held under arrest in Tobolsk in 1917-1918 and then moved to Ekaterinburg, where they were executed.
Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak [Supreme Leader of the anti-Bolshevik government in Omsk during the Russian Civil War] took control of Tyumen (Tobolsk) Province before summer 1919; and in August 1919, 51 divisions commanded by V.K. Blyukher occupied Tyumen, Yalutorovsk, and Tobolsk. Partisan forces commanded by P.I. Loparev carried out most of the operations in the northern part of the province. Battles with White units continued in the north right up to March 1920.
The Soviet authorities' policy of "War Communism" met with fierce resistance from Siberian peasants. In January 1921, the largest anti-Bolshevik uprising in Russia since the Civil War broke out. Insurgents blocked the railway, occupied Tobolsk, Surgut, Berezovo, and Obdorsk (Salekhard), stormed Ishim, and came within four km of Tyumen. Both sides fought a battle of unprecedented savagery. Regular Red Army units using armored trains, warships, and other means took part in suppressing the uprising, which was finally crushed only in 1922.
Tyumen Region underwent a number of administrative and territorial reorganizations during the Soviet period. Two national districts, Ostyak-Vogul and Yamalo-Nenets, were formed in the Northern Ob area in 1930 based on the proportion of native people in these territories-about 50% in Ostyak-Vogul and more than 70% in Yamalo-Nenets.
As in pre-Revolutionary times, the region became a place of exile, and a GULAG system developed in the north. Tyumen Region was the site of the infamous 501 and 503 (forced labor) construction projects. The territory was still mainly agricultural between the 1920s and 1940s, the major change in this area being collectivization.
After the Second World War began, the region's entire economy was reorganized along military lines. Factories, research institutes, and a number of government ministries and departments were evacuated to the region's cities; and hospitals were set up throughout the region. Lenin's body was kept in Tyumen starting in summer 1941.
Ninety natives of Tyumen Region became Heroes of the Soviet Union, 90 000 were awarded medals "For Valiant Labor", and 70 000 received military decorations.
The main event in the territory's life was the formation of Tyumen Region, including the Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets districts, on August 14, 1944, with the city of Tyumen as the capital.
A new chapter of the history of Tyumen Region began in 1964 with the "Discovery of the Century." The discovery of oil and gas fields formed the basis of the world's largest oil and gas complex. Development of the oil and gas fields fundamentally changed life in Tyumen Region; new cities such as Novy Urengoi, Nadym, and Noyabrsk arose.
In record time, Tyumen Region became the country's main oil and gas energy source. By the end of the 1980s, the region was supplying the country with 400 million tons of oil and 574.2 billion m3 of gas per year. Strong construction and engineering industries developed in support of this great burst of activity, and research and design institutes, higher educational institutes, and other schools appeared. Development of Tyumen Region's natural resources became the business of the entire country. The region's population increased many times. Hundreds of thousands of people arriving from all parts of the country to work the fields formed a new generation, for whom the region became a second home and the birthplace of their children. Today, Tyumen Region is both the country's largest and one of the world's largest natural resource storehouses.
RESOURCES
Tyumen Region is rightly known as the "energy center of Russia" because of its huge hydrocarbon resources. A major part of the country's oil and gas reserves are concentrated here in the extraordinary Samotlor, Kholmogorsk, Krasnoleninsk, and Fedorov oil fields and the Urengoi, Medvezhye, and Yamburg gas fields. In the estimation of specialists, high-grade hydrocarbon zones are present on the Gydan Peninsula and in the Karsk Shelf area of Yamalo. There are also great prospects associated with development of the Uvatsk project in the southern part of the region.
In addition to oil and gas, the region produces peat, sapropel [aquatic ooze], quartz sand, brick and ceramic clays, limestone, and building stone. Nearly 400 deposits of raw stock for manufacturing building materials have been identified and explored to various extents.
Tyumen Region has abundant freshwater reserves and large mineral water resources. The region's subsurface waters contain more than half of Russia's iodine and bromine reserves.
ECONOMY
Tyumen Region ranks first in Russia in industrial output. The main industrial centers are located in Tyumen, Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk, Tobolsk, Novy Urengoi, Nadym, Noyabrsk, Nefteyugansk, Kogalym, and Ishim.
The oil and gas industry is the foundation of the regional economy, accounting for 87% of the region's industrial output. The region produces a large part of the country's oil, gas, and gas condensate. Production figures for 2001 were 231.2 million tons of oil and gas condensate and 526.4 billion m3 of natural gas. Oil production is increasing in Uvatsky District in the southern part of the region.
A well-developed oil refining industry supplies light hydrocarbon feedstock to the country's petrochemical industry.
The chemical and petrochemical industries produce butadiene, synthetic resins, plastics, polyethylene tubing, and polymer film. Nearly one-third of the country's liquefied household gas is produced in the region. An industrial complex for producing vehicle fuel is developing in the north, and mini-plants producing motor oil for the local market are in operation.
Engineering plants manufacture such in-demand products as oilfield, drilling, exploration, and oil refining equipment; tractor trailers; woodworking machinery; concrete mixers; storage batteries; automatic devices; medical equipment and spare parts; medical needles; and single-use syringes.
The building material industry manufactures precast reinforced concrete structures and components, elements for large-panel housing construction, bricks, building blocks, environmentally friendly insulating materials, ceramic roof tiles, and facing tiles.
The forest and woodworking industries play an important role in the region's development. Companies in this sector manufacture a wide range of furniture; chipboard; plywood; wooden houses; heat insulation, finishing, and other materials; and woodwork.
Socially oriented sectors are represented by the light and food industries. Light industry manufactures woolen fabrics, yarn, fur items, fishing nets, leather and felt footwear, and clothing. The food industry produces a wide assortment of meat, fish, and dairy products; bread, baked goods, and confectionery; canned foods; and other food products.
Owing to the region's extreme climatic conditions and far northern location, farmland occupies only 3% of its territory. More favorable conditions in the southern districts allow the cultivation of grain, potatoes, vegetables, and feed crops. Livestock farms raise cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, and poultry. More than 84% of the region's agricultural products are produced here.
Agricultural organizations in the autonomous districts specialize in the production of milk, eggs, and greenhouse vegetables. Fishing and reindeer herding are traditional occupations of the native people.
Per capita production is equal to 27 kg of meat (fattened beef and poultry), 163 kg of milk, and 326 eggs. Tyumen Region leads the other regions of the Ural Federal District in per capita egg production.
The main economic, geographic, and political conditions for investment in Tyumen Region include the following:
• abundant natural resources;
• predominance of sectors of the fuel and energy complex;
• the increasing share of the processing industry, including hydrocarbon processing;
• a skilled workforce;
• high effective demand for consumer goods and services;
• political stability;
• investment legislation providing a system of government guarantees and tax concessions for investors.
Tyumen Region is among the regions with the highest level of investment activity and is in a leading position in Russia in terms of fixed capital investments. The largest volume of fixed capital investments is directed to industry and transport.
The region is also a promising location for profitable investment of foreign capital.
Business cooperation is being carried out with partner companies and organizations in 87 countries, including the United States, Great Britain, and Cyprus. The most attractive sectors for investment are oil refining and gas processing, oil production, and trade.
Tyumen Region is one of three leading regions in foreign trade turnover, which in 2001 amounted to 6.9% of Russia's total foreign trade turnover.
Foreign trade operations are carried out with companies in many countries. The region's ten most important trading partners are Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary, Cyprus, Lithuania, Slovakia, and the Virgin Islands. The most stable partners, Ukraine, Germany, and Hungary, account for 45% of foreign trade turnover.
Nearly all exports (99.7%) consist of products of the fuel and energy complex. Machinery and equipment make up 71.6% of imports.
AUTHORITIES
The regional Administration is the highest executive body. The head of the executive branch and highest official is the governor. The region’s executive and administrative body is the Government.
Official Site of the Administration of Tyumen Region:
http://adm.tyumen.ru
# posted by Deval : 4:03 PM
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