Magnitogorsk

Magnitogorsk was named after Mount Magnitnaya, a geological anomaly that once consisted almost completely of iron ore, around 55% to 60% iron. It is the second-largest city in Russia that is not the administrative centre of any federal subject or district, after Tolyatti. Magnitogorsk contains the largest iron and steel works in the country: Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. The official motto of the city is "the place where Europe and Asia meet" (Russian: Место, где встречаются Европа и Азия), as the city straddles von Strahlenberg's line.

Magnitogorsk is one of a small number of planned socialist realist settlements established in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War (others including Nowa Huta in Poland, Havířov in Czechoslovakia and Eisenhüttenstadt in the GDR).

History

Foundation

Magnitogorsk was founded in 1743 as part of the Orenburg Line of forts built during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth. By 1747, the settlement had grown large enough to justify the building of a small wooden chapel, later named "the Church of the Holy Trinity".

Russian iron-ore mining in this region dates back to 1752, when two entrepreneurs named Tverdysh and Myasnikov decided to explore the feasibility of mining in the area. They took advantage of the fact that Mount Magnitnaya did not belong to anyone at that time; they secured it for themselves by way of petition to Empress Elizabeth. In 1759, the petition was accepted, and they launched iron-ore production.

Growth

In 1928, a Soviet delegation arrived in Cleveland, Ohio, to discuss with American consulting company Arthur G. McKee a plan to set up in Magnitogorsk a copy of the U.S. Steel steel-mill in Gary, Indiana. The contract was increased four times, and eventually the new plant had a capacity of over four million tons annually.

It was a showpiece of Soviet achievement. Huge reserves of iron ore in the area made it a prime location to build a steel plant capable of challenging its Western rivals. However, a large proportion of the workforce, as ex-peasants, typically had few industrial skills and little industrial experience. To solve these issues, several hundred foreign specialists arrived to direct the work, including a team of architects headed by the German Ernst May.

According to the original plans, the city was to have followed the linear city design, with rows of similar superblock neighborhoods running parallel to the factory, with a strip of greenery, or greenbelt, separating them. Planners would align living and production spheres so as to minimize necessary travel time: workers would generally live in a sector of the residential band closest to the sector of the industrial band in which they worked.

However, by the time that May completed his plans for Magnitogorsk, construction of both factory and housing had already started. The sprawling factory and enormous cleansing lakes had left little room available for development, and May therefore had to redesign his settlement to fit the modified site. This modification resulted in a city being more "rope-like" than linear. Although the industrial area is concentrated on the left bank of the river Ural, and most residential complexes are on its right bank, the city inhabitants are still subjected to noxious fumes and factory smoke.

The city underwent rapid change in the 1930s when, according to Stalin's Five-Year-Plans, Magnitogorsk was to become a one-industry town modeled after two of the most advanced steel-producing cities in the United States at that time: Gary, Indiana, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At this time, hundreds of foreign experts streamed in to implement and direct the work.

The book Behind the Urals, by John Scott, documents the industrial development of Magnitogorsk during the 1930s. Scott discusses the fast-paced industrial and social developments during Stalin's first five-year plan and the rising paranoia of the Soviet regime preceding the Great Purge of the late 1930s. In 1931, it received the status of Город (lit. '[city]')

Closed city

In 1937, foreigners were told to leave, and Magnitogorsk was declared a closed city. There is little reliable information about events and development of the city during the closed period.

The city played an important role during World War II because it supplied much of the steel for the Soviet war effort. Furthermore, its strategic location east of the Ural Mountains made Magnitogorsk safe from seizure by the German Army.

Re-opening

During the perestroika movement of the Gorbachev administration, the closed-city status was removed, and foreigners were allowed to visit the city again. The years after perestroika brought a significant change in the life of the city; the Iron and Steel Plant was reorganized as a joint-stock company Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MISW or MMK), which helped with the reconstruction of the railway and the building of a new airport.

With the depletion of the substantial local iron-ore reserves, Magnitogorsk has to import raw materials from northern Kazakhstan.

Magnitogorsk building collapse

On December 31, 2018, an apartment block in the city of Magnitogorsk suffered a gas explosion and collapse which killed 39 of its residents, and injured 17 more.