Novokuznetsk is located in the Kuznetsk Hollow, on both banks of the Tom' River, at the confluence of

Rivers Aba and Kondoma, 308 km to the south of Kemerovo. It is a knot of railway lines and highways.

Novokuznetsk is one of the largest metallurgical and coal-mining centers of Russia.

The city has the balneal resort area of Tersinka.

Novokuznetsk with the area of 424 sq km has the population of 549.4 thousand people (as of 2012). In

1618 — 1622 it was called the Kuznetsk stockaded town, because the indigenous people of the region

were called Kuznetsk Tatars (i.e. “Blacksmith Tatars”) for their metallurgical crafts. In 1622 – 1939 it was

called Kuznetsk. In 1929 due to construction of Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant the settlements Garden

City (renamed into Novokuznetsk in 1931) and Stalinsk were constructed in 1932. In 1939 Kuznetsk was

attached to Stalinsk. The incorporated town was initially called Stalinsk-Kuznetsk, and then Stalinsk

again. In 1961, following the exposure of the so-called cult of Stalin’s personality, the town came to be

called Novokuznetsk.

Cultural Life:

Novokuznetsk has a few theaters: opera and drama theatre, puppet theatre, and youth theater

studio Synthesis; a circus and a planetarium; museums: V.A.Chivilikhin House Museum, Historical and

Architectural Museum “Kuznetsk Fortress”, Kuzedeevsk Museum of Arts and Local Lore, F.M Dostoevsky

Literary and Memorial Museum, Novokuznetsk Museum of Local Lore, and Novokuznetsk Fine Arts

Museum.

Fyodor Dostoevsky visited Kuznetsk and married Maria Isaeva in 1857 in Odygitria Church.

There are also art galleries and exhibition halls.

Architecture and sights

Historical and architectural complex Kuznetsk Fortress. A few wooden and stone constructions of the

18th -19th centuries have remained in the old part of the city. The old part of the city harbors a reserved

grove of black poplars (Topolniki).