Samara (city)

Capital city and river port of Samara oblast (region), west-central Russian Federation; population (2002) 1,157,900. Samara is located on the River Volga and the main Trans-Siberian Railway, 820 km/510 mi southeast of Moscow. It is a major industrial centre, with large heavy-engineering industries (producing road vehicles and railway rolling stock), as well as chemical, oil-processing, wood-processing, and light industries.

Samara was founded in 1586 as a fortress; it became a town in 1688, the provincial capital in 1851, and the seat of the anti-Bolshevik Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly in 1918. The city was provisional capital of the USSR 1941–43; many Soviet government departments and foreign diplomatic missions moved here during World War II. The city contains several higher-education institutions and a theatre (founded in 1851). In 1935, Samara's name was changed in honour of the Soviet politician V V Kuibyshev; it reverted to its original name after the fall of communism.