Balashov is a city (since 1780) in Russia, the administrative center of the Balashov district of the Saratov region. The town of Balashov forms the municipality of the same name with the status of an urban settlement as the only settlement in its composition.
Balashov was founded in the 17th century by the yasak peasant Grigory Bolashev as a farm, then became a village. By the decree of Empress Catherine II of November 7 (18), 1780, the former palace village was given the status of a county town and Balashovsky district became part of the Saratov province.
Balashovsky district occupied the western part of Saratov
province and bordered on the lands of the Don Cossack, Tambov and
Voronezh provinces. In terms of area, it occupied the 3rd place in
the province. According to the data of that time, the land area of
Balashovsky district was determined at approximately 71916 square
versts. This amounted to about 13-14% of all the lands of the
Saratov province.
A pier appears, bread is floated along the
river. For the first time, rafting on the Khoper River was
undertaken by the merchant Mikhail Mikhailovich Golosev in the first
half of the 19th century. Having loaded the ship with various small
goods, he safely went down on it past Balashov. His example was
followed in 1836 by the Volga merchant Prevratukhin. He began to
raft the forest on Khopr. In 1840, a barge with flour was launched
to Rostov-on-Don. In 1849, 19 barges with a cargo worth 219,300
silver rubles were transported along the well-worn waterway of the
Khopra River. The barges were built in the village of Bolynshino,
Serdobsky district, and then they began to buy them on the Volga and
delivered in disassembled form to the town of Balashov, Turki, where
there were wharves. In the villages of Arkadak, Bolshaya Gryaznukha,
Lopatino, Pinerovka, Chirikov, Krasny Yar they were collected,
loaded with goods and sent to the southern provinces of Russia with
hollow water.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Balashov
was the tenth largest city in the province by the number of
inhabitants; it was growing rapidly, turning into a significant
commercial and industrial center of the western outskirts of the
Saratov province. In the 30s of the XIX century, the total number of
townspeople was 2104 people. There are fairs and bazaars in the
city. In 1864, the first educational institution was opened - a
parish school. Then a city four-year school, male and female
gymnasiums, spiritual vocational schools appeared. In the city,
according to the All-Russian census of 1897, there were 6 schools, a
zemstvo hospital, an orphanage, 2 almshouses, 7 churches, including
the Holy Trinity Cathedral. Factories worked: salty melting, brick,
oil mills, iron foundries and mechanical workshops. Mills grew one
after another. At the beginning of the XX century. 6 mechanical
steam mills were already operating in the city. Trade was noisy in
the market square - Troitskaya. Fairs were held four times a year:
Evdokiyskaya, Troitskaya, Rozhdestvenskaya, Ilinskaya. The largest
were the trade establishments of “woolen, paper, silk, woolen, linen
and fur goods, the Pavlovs' sausage trade, D. Dudakov and I.
Wakker's bakeries and confectioneries, V.R. Vavaev's wine and
gastronomic trade, and E. and A. Dozorovs ", needle and haberdashery
trade of M. K. Vasiliev, manufacturing shops of V. F. Semenov, M. A.
Bogatyrev. Representative offices of the companies "Singer" and
"Ford" were opened.
The construction of railways through
Balashov began in 1891. The largest enterprises were the stations of
the Ryazan-Uralskaya and South-Eastern railways with their services,
depots and workshops. The city was connected by direct communication
with Kamyshin and Tambov (1894, Ryazan-Ural railway), Penza and
Kharkov (1895, South-Eastern railway). By 1894, the first railway
bridge was built across Khoper near Balashov. This gave impetus to
the development of local industry and trade.
In 1898 the
city's population reached 12,166 people, in 1907 - 24,700 people.
The main class engaged in commercial and industrial activities was
the merchants.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the
city had 22 streets and lanes, 2500 residential buildings, 2 squares
and a city public garden with an area of 4080 square fathoms.
There was a water supply system, street lighting was carried out
with kerosene lanterns, 6 Orthodox churches, prayer houses for
Baptists, Molokans, Subbotniks and Jews, a people's house, 2
cinemas. There were steam mills, a power plant, an iron foundry, 3
oil mills, 2 brick and 3 tanneries, enterprises of the stations of
the Ryazan-Ural and South-Eastern railways.
The former noble
estates - Padakh, Otradin, Bobylevka, Zubrilovka - were visited by
poets G.R.Derzhavin, M.Yu. Lermontov, P.A.Vyazemsky, J.P.
Borisov-Musatov and K. A. Korovin, composer, pianist and conductor
S. V. Rachmaninov.
On November 19, 1917, in the building of the People's
House, Soviet power was proclaimed in the city and district.
All enterprises were nationalized after the October Revolution of
1917.
During the civil war, Balashovsky district was
repeatedly invaded by detachments of "greens" and "Antonovites". The
headquarters of the 9th Army of the Southern Front was located in
the city.
In 1928, after the abolition of the provinces and
counties, the city became the center of the Balashov district and
the Balashov district of the Lower Volga region. The district
includes 48 village councils and 5 volosts: Trostyanskaya,
Ivanovskaya, Kozlovskaya, Padovskaya and Lunacharskaya. After its
creation, large-scale construction began in the city: a new metal
plant, a power plant appeared, the previously existing enterprises
were reconstructed and expanded. In the 30s of the twentieth
century. a feed mill, a bakery, a fruit and vegetable plant, a
petroleum storage depot, new schools and kindergartens began
operating in the city. In 1930, the 3rd joint school of pilots and
aircraft technicians of the civil air fleet was opened, in 1933 the
Pedagogical Institute.
Since 1936 Balashov has been a part of
the Saratov region.
During the Great Patriotic War, Balashov
was an important railway junction through which the supply of the
Stalingrad and Don fronts went. In the fall of 1941, the Kiev plant
"Arsenal-2" was evacuated to the city. The aircraft depot has
established round-the-clock aircraft repair work. The enterprises of
the city mastered the production of products necessary for the
front. More than 20 hospitals are located on the territory of
Balashov and Balashovsky district. In December 1943, the Oryol
Armored School was relocated to Balashov.
Many bright pages
were written by the Balashovites in the annals of the Great
Patriotic War of 1941-1945. 12 fellow countrymen, 13 participants in
the war, who lived in the city and the region in different years,
132 graduates of the 3rd Balashov school of the Civil Air Fleet and
the 1st Balashov military school of pilots were awarded the title of
Hero of the Soviet Union.
In the postwar period, the city
continued to develop as a regional center.
On January 6,
1954, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the
USSR, the Balashov region was formed. Its territory was formed due
to the downsizing of Saratov, Voronezh, Stalingrad and Tambov
regions. The years of the region's existence (1954-1957) were a time
of intensive construction, industrial and cultural development of
the city. New factories (machine building, auto repair, processing),
factories, shops, schools and hospitals were opened. The residential
area of Balashov during these years increased by more than 60
thousand square meters. The city built a cinema "Spartak" for three
hundred seats, a hotel for one hundred rooms. Much attention was
paid to the construction of new and reconstruction of existing
industrial enterprises - in a word, favorable changes have taken
place in all spheres of the city's life, and a good foundation was
laid for its further growth and development. However, in November
1957, the Balashov region was reorganized, and Balashov again became
part of the Saratov region as the center of the Balashov region.
In September 1958, a mica plant was opened in Balashov. Before
that, there was only a mica splitting shop. With the full
development of capacities, about 7 thousand workers could work at
the plant. The building of the House of Soviets was handed over to
the workshops of the mica factory. Building on the street. Karl Marx
was built by the plant itself. The decision to build a shoe factory
and a raincoat fabric factory was taken at the same time. In 1958, a
boarding school was opened in Balashov, which received solid
buildings of the regional executive committee and the regional
administration of agriculture. The cooperative technical school was
opened after the reconstruction of the administrative building of
the regional consumer cooperation at the corner of Pushkin and Lenin
streets. A new city hospital has appeared.
At present,
Balashov is the largest city after Saratov on the Right Bank of the
region.
Awards on October 9, 1980 by the Decree of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for the successes
achieved by the workers of the city in economic and cultural
construction, and in connection with the bicentennial the city of
Balashov was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.
After the collapse of the USSR, many large factories were closed in
Balashov, including the capacity of the largest enterprise, the
raincoat fabrics plant (KPT), greatly reduced.
In 1990, it
was planned to erect a new building for a drama theater in Balashov,
but due to the collapse of the country, the dream could not be
realized. For a long time the drama theater was crowded into a small
room with 70 seats.
In 2017, a new building of the drama
theater was opened. Now, the city hosts the Theater Prikhopyorie
festival every year, where many famous Russian theaters participate,
including the Moscow Provincial Theater under the direction of
Sergei Bezrukov, the State Theater of Nations, the V. Mayakovsky
Moscow Academic Theater, and the Skorik Workshop MGIK Youth
Experimental Theater.
In 2018, the embankment reconstruction project won the federal competition "Historical Settlements and Small Towns". The city received 100 million rubles for the project. The work is scheduled to be completed by November 2019.