One of the youngest Russian cities was built in the 70s as a settlement of oilmen and oil refiners in the Arctic. Young people from all over the Soviet Union gathered at the All-Union Komsomol shock construction site. And now the population of Usinsk is quite young. Most of the residents work in enterprises related to oil production and refining.
General information
The city of Usinsk is located in the north-eastern part of the Komi Republic in the Urals, in the middle Pechora basin. Located on the right bank of the Usa River, not far from its confluence with Pechora, 3 km from the railway station. 757 km to the south-west is the capital of the Komi Republic - Syktyvkar. The Arctic Circle is only 90 km away. The area is 3 056 thousand ha (7.3% of the total Komi Republic). The population of Usinsk is 38, 800 people, according to 2017.
The region, according to the conditions of life and work, is equated to the regions of the Far North. The climate, although it belongs to the temperate continental, is closer in characteristics to the subarctic. Most of the year is under snow cover (230 days a year).
It is the center of the region’s oil industry and accounts for about three quarters of the extracted hydrocarbon resources (oil and gas) in Komi. Most of the population of Usinsk works in management, industrial, auxiliary and service enterprises of the oil industry. In total, about a thousand enterprises of various forms of ownership work here, employing 26, 000 people.
Foundation of the city
In the territory where the modern city is located, people have long lived. The native population of Usinsk were Samoyed Nenets, who were engaged in deer breeding, fishing and hunting for fur animals. Somewhat later, Komi-Izhemtsy came here. In the 18th century, the first Russian settlements appeared.
The date of foundation of the village of Usinsk is 1966, and in 1984 he received the status of a city. Usinsk was built for people who were supposed to work on the development of large oil fields in the Arctic. In the mid-seventies, it was originally planned to build a village on the banks of the Usa River, where the name of the city came from. Now at this place the village of Parma was built. However, due to fantastic Soviet plans to transfer part of the flow of large Siberian rivers to Central Asia, it was decided to move the construction to another place. The territory safe from flooding turned out to be in the midst of impassable swamps. The plans remained only on paper, but had to build in difficult conditions.
In 1970, the construction of the village began on an undeveloped and unsuitable place to live. The first were built wooden houses from timber. The population of Usinsk was then 700 people.
Shock construction
At first, the construction of a new city in the tundra was carried out at the usual pace. By the end of 1974, the building of the first school was built, and in the spring of the following, the first five-story panel building was put into operation. Unlike many northern cities, Usinsk has neither a private sector, nor barracks. The whole city was built up with five and nine-story houses.
The construction of the city was announced by the All-Union Komsomol shock building, youth from all over the country came to work here. The construction of buildings and complex infrastructure was carried out at a rapid pace in difficult polar conditions. What became possible with operational management in the distribution of labor and material resources. The population of Usinsk began to grow rapidly, and by 1979 in the village lived 19 513 people.
