Orsk is a Russian town located in the South Ural, at the confluence of River Or into Ural, 327 km to the southeast of Orenburg.

Orsk is the second population largest and to industrially important town of the Orenburg Region.

It is a railway junction. Orsk takes the overall area of 1427 sq.km and has the population of 238 thousand people (as of 2011).

History of Orsk

It was founded as Orenburg (a settlement standing on River Or) fortress in 1735. In 1740 Orenburg was built up anew downstream River Yaik (aka Ural), and the fortress in the mouth of Or came to be called Orsk Fortress.

From 1861 it was a settlement of the Orenburg Cossack army. Orsk became a town in 1865. From the late 19th century it was a district town of the Orenburg Province.

Apparently, the place of the town was really inconvenient (it was flooded and had no woods), and so local Turkic population in the mid 19 century called it Yaman-kal, i.e. “a bad fortress”.

From the end of the 19th century the economic development of the town was accelerated.

In the 1930s fields of nickel, iron ore, rare and non-ferrous metals were discovered around Orsk; a railroad was laid down.

Culture

Orsk has A.S. Pushkin Drama Theater, the Orsk Museum of Local Lore and its branches - the Shevchenko Museum (Shevchenko was in exile in Orsk in 1847-48 and 1850).

From 1906 to 1918 (with some breaks) the writer Lidia Seifullina lived in Orsk, and the poet Musa Dzhalil stayed there in 1925-26.