Omsk – Siberian City

The Omsk Region of Russia

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Below is some basic information about Omsk.  The Engage Russia team will be visiting Omsk over the next few weeks and months and will be posting videos, photos, and print materials from those trips as soon as they become available.  If you are interested in getting more information about Omsk or creating a partnership in that area, send an email to TellMeMore@EngageRussia.org.

Omsk is a city in southwest Siberia in Russia, the administrative center of Omsk Oblast. It is the second-largest city in Russia beyond the Urals. The distance from Omsk to Moscow is 2,700 kilometres (1,700 mi). 

History
In the Russian Empire, it was the seat of the Governor General of Western Siberia, and later of the Governor General of the Steppes. For a brief period during the Russian Civil War in 1918–1920, it was proclaimed the Capital of Russia, and held the imperial gold reserves. The wooden fort of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the expanding Russian frontier, along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the Kyrgyz nomads of the Steppes.

In the 19th and early 20th century, Omsk became the administrative center of Western Siberia and the Steppes, acquiring a few churches and cathedrals of various denominations, mosques, a synagogue, the governor-general’s mansion, a military academy. Ink was joked to have been sold by the buckets. As the frontier receded and military importance diminished, the town fell into lethargy; it was during the mid-1800s that Dostoevsky lived and wrote in exile here.

The new boom began with the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway in 1890s, when the merchants flocked to the city on the rail/river junction. Many a trade company opened stores and offices here, building an elaborately decorated district of the city, and bringing the hustle-and-bustle of modern transportation, means of communications and entertainment. Foreign powers, including the British, Dutch and Germans, opened consulates to represent their commercial interests.

Shortly after the 1917 revolution, the pro-monarchy “white” forces seized control of the city. The “Provisional Government of Russia” was established in 1918, headed by the polar explorer and decorated war hero Admiral Kolchak. Omsk was proclaimed the Capital of Russia, and its central bank kept the Imperial gold reserves, guarded by the Czechoslovakian garrison trapped in the chaos of World War I. 

Population
The population in Omsk rose from 31,000 in 1881 to 53,050 in 1900 and to 1,148,418 in 1989 Census. The 2002 Census recorded that the population declined to 1,134,016. 

Text source: Wikipedia – 2009