The Russian city of Novosibirsk is one of the largest localities in the vast expanse of Siberia. It isn’t really popular among tourists, but it is one of the industrial and economic centers of Russia.
Amazing facts about Novosibirsk
- Novosibirsk is the third-most populous city in Russia. More than 1,600,000 people live here.
- This is the largest of all Siberian cities, and of the entire Asian part of Russia as well.
- The area of Novosibirsk exceeds 190 sq miles (500 sq km) This is five times the area of the Republic of San Marino, and 20 times the area of the Pacific country Tuvalu.
- The Novosibirsk reservoir formed on the Ob river covers an area of more than 380 sq miles (1000 sq km). It is so large that locals often call it “The Ob sea”.
- Novosibirsk was originally named Novonikolayevsk, in the name of the emperor Nicholas II of Russia. The name was given to it after the Russian revolution.
- The world’s longest roofed metro bridge is located there. Its length exceeds 6500 feet (2 km). Local metro trains cross the Ob river by this bridge.
- Wolf Messing, one of the most famous hypnotists in history, lived in Novosibirsk for a while in the 40s of the last century.
- The population of Novosibirsk exceeds the population of the whole Montenegro country by 1 million people.
- Novosibirsk zoo is the largest to the East of the Ural Mountains. It is home to more than 11,000 animals.
- The Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre is the largest theater building in Russia, and it is even more huge than the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. It is the second-largest theater in the world.
- The Ob river on the banks of which this city stands has the largest basin area among all the rivers in Russia.
- Novosibirsk has a unique Museum of the Sun dedicated to solar cults of various peoples and countries.
- The length of the 6-lane Bugrinsky bridge in Novosibirsk reaches 6876 feet (2096 meters), which makes it the longest among all automobile bridges in Siberia.
- Krasniy avenue in this city is the longest straight street in the world. Its length is about 22,792 feet (6947 meters).
- There were different time zones on the left and right banks of the Ob river in the recent past. For obvious reasons, that caused a lot of inconvenience to the local residents.
- The population of Novosibirsk has exceeded 1 million people in just 70 years after the foundation. It was even included in The Guinness Book of World Records as the most quickly growing city in the world.
- Novosibirsk is the largest of all Russian municipalities.
- There are about 1,500 streets in this city.
- Novosibirsk is very close to the geographical center of Russia.
- The shortest street in Russia is located here. This is Sibstroyputi street (131 feet in length, or 40 meters) with 3 buildings on it.
- The Novosibirsk metro is the easternmost in Russia.
- Oktyabrsky bridge in Novosibirsk is the only bridge in the world under which a jet fighter has ever flown. This unique trick was performed by the Soviet pilot Privalov in 1965 on a MiG-17 (Fresco) military aircraft.
- Novosibirsk Planetarium is the largest in Russia to the East of the Urals. Besides that, it houses one of the few active Foucault pendulums in the world which demonstrates the rotation of the Earth.
- The total length of Novosibirsk streets exceeds 870 miles (1400 km).
- Novosibirsk Tolmachevo international airport is the largest in all of Siberia. It serves more than 3 million passengers annually.
- The Novosibirsk State public scientific and technical library is the largest in the Asian part of Russia. It covers an area of 95,000 sq feet ( 28,972 sq meters) and contains more than 14 million printed publications.
- Novosibirsk became the first city in Russia to introduce compulsory universal primary education. This happened in 1912.
- The local railway station is one of the busiest in Russia. More than 16 million passengers pass through it every year, which is 10 times the number of residents of the city.
- The only metro transportation system in Siberia is located there.
- The name of the city was written with a hyphen in the past, like “Novo-Sibirsk”.
- Lavrentiev Avenue in Novosibirsk is listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the street with the largest number of scientific institutions located on it. There are 20 of them.
- Local Botanical garden has a unique herbarium collection consisting of more than 550.000 exhibits.
- Another record was set here in 2013 when local confectioners produced the world’s longest souffle, 295 feet (90 meters) long.
- Trams run through Novosibirsk, but the tram systems on different banks of the Ob river operate independently of each other.
- Seasonal temperature differences in Novosibirsk are quite large. Records of frost and heat here are -59 °F (-50.5 °C) and 106 °F (+41.1 °C).