Krasnoyarsk is situated in the eastern part of Siberia. Of course,the nature around the city is fascinating. Taiga: pine-trees, fir-trees, birches.
Krasnoyarsk was founded in July of 1628 as a Russian border fort by cossacks.
Its name derives from 2 Russian words: "Krasniy" - Red and "Yar" which means steep bank or cliff.
In the Russian Empire, Krasnoyarsk was one of the places to which political exiles were banished. For example, eight Decembrists were deported from St. Petersburg to Krasnoyarsk after the failure of the revolt.
Later Lenin was in exile in the south of Krasnoyarsk region and Stalin was in exile in its north. Maybe that's why during the epoch of Stalinism, Krasnoyarsk was a major center of the Gulag system. The most important labor camp was the Kraslag or Krasnoyarsky ITL (1938-c.1960) with the two units located in Kansk and Reshyoty. In the city of Krasnoyarsk itself, the Yeniseylag or Yeniseysky ITL labor camp was prominent as well during World War II (1940-1941). So, for many years it was a closed city.
Krasnoyarsk is an important industrial city. There's about 40 large-scale plants and factories.
There is Sibtyazhmash plant (heavy engineering construction), aluminium plant, Krasmash (main Russian plant specialized on production of ballistic rockets for submarines and upper-stage rockets of launch vehicles ZENIT and PROTON), the metallurgic plant, the plant of base metals, the plant of nonferrous metals and gold, the pharmacy factory, the dock yard, the paper factory, the hydroelectric power station (which is now the fifth largest in the world and the second in Russia), the river port.
Temperatres in Krasnoyarsk vary from -46 degrees C (according to statistics the lowest temperature equal -52 C was registered in 1931) till +30 (maximum is +36). Snow usually lays on the ground from October till April but it depends.
Though Krasnoyarsk is situated in Siberia, it's a rather developped city. It has a number of local television companies and the highly-developed telecommunications, many districts of the city have LAN-based broadband Internet access. There're lots of supermarkets, shops, night clubs, restaurants, cafes, cinemas, theatres, and sport facilities.
Krasnoyarsk is a very prominent scientific and educational center of Siberia, with over 30 higher education facilities, many of which are the branches of the Russian Academy of Science, and about 200 high schools. There are several museums in the city.
The most popular place of attraction for tourists visiting Krasnoyarsk is the huge national nature reserve Stolby (Pillars in Russian) or the Rock Pillars. Stolby covers an area of 470 km² (181 mile²) with numerous giant granite rocks formations up to 100 meters high, many of very extraordinary shapes.
Stolby is also a major rock climbing location, many local climbers intentionally do not use any belaying equipment and call their extreme sport "stolbizm", which is known around the world as solo climbing.
Watch video of Krasnoyarsk
