30 Facts About Samara

Samara, known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev, is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast.

Formerly a closed city, Samara is a large and important social, political, economic, industrial, and cultural centre in Russia and hosted the European Union—Russia Summit in May 2007.

The life of Samara's citizens has always been intrinsically linked to the Volga River, which has not only served as the main commercial thoroughfare of Russia throughout several centuries, but has great visual appeal.

Samara's riverfront is one of the main recreation sites for both local citizens and tourists.

Samara is named after the Samara River, which probably means "summer water" in the Indo-Iranian language which was spoken there around the third millennium BC.

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The Samara city gives its name to the Samara culture, a neolithic culture of the fifth millennium BC, and the Kurgan hypothesis associates the region with the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language.

Legend has it that Alexius, Metropolitan of Moscow, later Patron Saint of Samara, visited the site of the city in 1357 and predicted that a great town would be erected there, and that the town would never be ravaged.

Samara opened its gates to peasant war rebels headed by Stepan Razin and Yemelyan Pugachyov, welcoming them with traditional bread and salt.

In 1780, Samara was turned into an uyezd town of Simbirsk Governorate overseen by the local Governor-General, and Uyezd and Zemstvo Courts of Justice and a Board of Treasury were established.

Samara was outside of the Pale of Settlement and as such did not have any significant Jewish population until the late 19th century.

In 1935, Samara was renamed Kuybyshev in honour of the Bolshevik leader Valerian Kuybyshev.

Samara's citizens fought at the front, many of them volunteers.

Samara is one of the major industrial cities of Russia and has a multiethnic population.

Development of the territory of modern Samara began in the 16th century with the foundation of the Samara fortress.

In 1804, a new plan for the reconstruction and expansion of Samara was drawn up, following the model of the previous ones.

The Samara fortress was still preserved, but had already lost its significance.

In 1949, a new general plan of Samara was adopted, according to which the transport system developed, a new industrial and residential area of Bezymyanka was built, new territories were developed, new planning units appeared - microdistricts.

Samara is the administrative center of the oblast and, within the framework of administrative divisions, it serves as the administrative center of Volzhsky District, even though it is not a part of it.

Samara is a multi-confessional city with various religious groups, including an Orthodox Christian majority and minorities of Armenian Apostolic Christians, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Jews.

Local authorities and courts in Samara have targeted Jehovah's Witnesses by liquidating the group's legal entity and designating it as an "extremist" organization.

Samara is a leading industrial center in the Volga region and is among the top ten Russian cities in terms of national income and industrial production volume.

Samara has an opera and ballet theater, a philharmonic orchestra hall, and five drama theaters.

House-Museum of Vladimir Lenin in Samara is an object of cultural heritage of federal significance.

Samara is one of eleven cities hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup with 6 matches which will take place in the newly built Cosmos Arena stadium.

Samara is located on the M5 highway, a major road between Moscow and the Ural region.

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Samara is a major river port, due to its location at the confluence of the Volga and Samara rivers.

Samara has 188 schools of general education, lyceums, high schools, and the college of continuous education.

Samara is a major educational and scientific centre of the Volga area.

Samara is the home of Samara State Aerospace University, one of Russia's leading engineering and technical institutions.

Samara is the hometown of Samara State University, a very respected higher-education institution in European Russia with competitive programs in Law, Sociology, and English Philology.