City in Krasnodar Krai, Russia
About Krasnodar
Krasnodar, formerly Yekaterinodar, is the largest city and the administrative centre of Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The city stands on the Kuban River in southern Russia, with a population of 1,154,885 residents, and up to 1.263 million residents in the Urban Okrug. In the past decade Krasnodar has experienced rapid population growth, rising to become the tenth-largest city in Russia, and the largest city in southern Russia, as well as the Southern Federal District.
Name
Krasnodar was founded in 1793 as Yekaterinodar (Екатеринода́р). The original name meant "Catherine's Gift", recognizing both Catherine the Great's grant of land in the Kuban region to the Black Sea Cossacks (created from former Zaporozhian Cossacks) and Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who is considered to be the patron of the city. City status was granted in 1867. On December 7, 1920, as a result of the October Revolution, Yekaterinodar was renamed Krasnodar (Gift of the Reds). The new name consists of Krasno- (Красно- – 'red', i.e. Communist, but also archaic/poetic form of 'beautiful'); and dar (дар – 'gift').
History
The city originated in 1793 as a military camp, then as a fortress built by the Black Sea Cossacks to defend imperial borders and to assert Russian dominion over Circassia, a claim which Ottoman Turkey contested. In the first half of the 19th century, Yekaterinodar grew into a busy center of the Kuban Cossacks, gaining official town status in 1867. By 1888, about 45,000 people lived in the city, which had become a vital trade center for southern Russia. In 1897 an obelisk commemorating the two-hundred-year history of the Kuban Cossacks (seen as founded in 1696) was erected in Yekaterinodar. The city was the administrative center of the Yekaterinodarsky Otdel of the Kuban Oblast. During the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) the city changed hands several times, coming successively under the control of the Red Army and of the Volunteer Army. …
Geography
Krasnodar is the largest city and capital of Krasnodar Krai by population and the second-largest by area. It is the 17th-largest city in Russia as of 2010 and the 13th-largest city in Russia as of 2021. It is located on the right bank of the Kuban River. It is 1300 km south of the Russian capital, Moscow. The Black Sea lies 120 km to the west. Under the Köppen climate classification, Krasnodar has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), bordering closely on a hot-summer humid continental climate, very similar to that of New York City. Winters are cold and damp, with unstable snow cover. The average temperature in January, the area's coldest month, is 1 °C (34 °F). …
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