Magnitogorsk

Magnitogorsk (Russian: Магнитогорск; IPA: [məgnʲɪtɐˈgorsk]) is an industrial city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern side of the extreme southern extent of the Ural Mountains by the Ural River. Population: 407,775 (2010 Census); 418,545 (2002 Census);440,321 (1989 Census).

It was named for the Magnitnaya Mountain that was almost pure iron, a geological anomaly. It is the second largest city in Russia that does not serve as an administrative center of either a federal subject or an administrative division. The largest iron and steel works in the country, Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, is located here.

History

Magnitnaya was founded in 1743 as part of the Orenburg Line of forts established under the Empress Elizabeth. By 1747 the Russian settlement was large enough to justify the building of the small wooden "Church of the Holy Trinity".

In 1752 two entrepreneurs called Tverdysh and Myasnikov started investigating the possibility of mining the ore for which the area would later become famous, and having established that there were no pre-existing rights to the Magnitnaya Mountain ore, the two petitioned for the right to extract it themselves. Their petition was granted and iron ore extraction began in 1759.