No. 3, 2009

Man first set foot on the bank of the Chusovaya River and the ancient Kama almost 300,000 years ago. By the start of the first millennium AD, the foundations had been laid for the future Finno-Ugric peoples of Eurasia. To the north and southeast, the territory was bordered by the tribal lands of the Chepets and Vym cultures - the ancestors of the present-day Komi and Udmurts. Caravans came from across the Sarmatian and Turkic steppes, carrying silver vessels, beads, beautifully made swords, and other wares. The traders would return home with furs (sable, beaver, squirrel), salt, and even grain.

The first known mention of the word "Perm" can be found in "A Tale of Bygone Years", an extraordinary monument to Old Russia, dated to the beginning of the 12th century. The Perm are listed among the peoples who "are of the ilk that pays tribute to Rus." If we assume that the Russians' first military campaigns to the Urals were to the north of the Kama basin, then this was most likely the name for the inhabitants of the Vychegda basin. The territory was subsequently referred to in Russian chronicles as Old Perm and Vychegda Perm. Inasmuch as the Russians were also familiar with the indigenous population of the Kama basin, the name "Perm" was applied to those lands as well.

The venerable Russian city of Perm owes its emergence to a crony of Peter the Great, the talented geographer, historian, and mining magnate Vasily Tatishchev (1686-1750). In May 1723, construction of a copperworks began on the River Yagoshikha, near its confluence with the Kama. The Yagoshikha Copperworks, as it came to be called, would in turn give rise to the fabled city of Perm. In 1780, Empress Catherine the Great signed a decree stating: "Recognizing the advantages of the Yagoshikha Copperworks' location and the suitability thereof for the founding of a provincial city in it, we hereby order that the building of a provincial city for the Perm governorship shall begin there, and that it shall be called Perm." An official celebration of this event took place in 1781 amid great ceremony, with a huge turnout of people, a cannonade, and the pealing of churchbells.

In the 19th century, Perm became a major industrial center on the trade route from European Russia to Siberia. Its economic importance grew even greater with the construction of the Urals Railroad in 1874. If there had been around 4,000 people living in Perm at the beginning of the century, the number of residents would grow to 28,000 by its end. New residential neighborhoods would appear, streets would be paved with cobblestones, many brick buildings would go up, and a public water supply system would be inaugurated. The Kama region's first opera theater opened there in 1870. In 1901, an electrical power plant, one of the first urban generating stations in Russia, was built in Perm. Perm was gradually transformed into a developed, cultured city of the Urals.

The Perm Territory of today is the result of contemporary Russia's first merger of two constituent entities - Perm Territory and the Komi-Permyak Autonomous Area - which took place on December 1, 2005. It is rightly considered the heart of the industrial Urals. Enterprises belonging to many branches of industry that are of strategic importance to modern Russia can be found throughout the region. On the Russian and world markets, it is famous for industries such as machine building, chemicals and petrochemicals, metallurgy, fuel production, lumber and wood products, and the manufacture of cellulose and paper. It is well-known around the world for the aircraft engines it produces (and with which even President Medvedev's Il-96 is equipped), the first-stage motors for the "Proton" rocket (which to this day continues to lift space vehicles into Earth orbit), and multiple-launch rocket systems (successors to the legendary "Katyusha" rocket launcher). Finally, the LUKOIL selection of world-class motor oils, produced at the LUKOIL-Permnefteorgsintez Refinery, the city of Perm's leading industrial enterprise, is one brand that is familiar all over Russia.

ficult trials. During World War II and the city's 900-day siege, the Nazi invaders caused it enormous damage. More than a third of the city's residential buildings were destroyed in the course of German shelling and aerial bombardment.

The northern capital of Russia can also be called the cradle of the gas business. It was there that Russia's first unit for obtaining synthetic gas (the thermolamp) was invented by Pyotr Sobolev-sky in 1811. The gasification of the Russian Empire's capital and the rest of the country dates from Sobolevsky's invention.

Today, St. Petersburg is the place where one of most important economic events for Russia and the world takes place annually: the city has become the Russian equivalent of Davos, Switzerland. Every summer, the heads of different states and governments, businessmen, and scholars gather in Russia's cultural capital to discuss and solve the world's most important economic problems.