Salekhard is a city on the river Ob, it is the administrative center of the region of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Founded as Obdorsk in 1595 by a Khanty settlement, the city was both a fort and a prison. The fortifications stood until 1807, after which the town was considered a village until the 1930s. In 1930, Obdorsk became the capital of the Jamal district, and in 1933 the town changed its name to Salekhard. In 1938, Salekhard obtained formal status as a city.

In both the tsarist era and during the Soviet Union, the city was used as a place of exile, and in the Soviet era, Salekhard was also tied more closely together with other parts of Russia. This happened with the construction of the railway between Salekhard and Nadym, which opened in 1949. The growth in the number of inhabitants has also been significant, from approximately 1,500 in 1907 to around 50,000 today.

You can go for some nice walks in Salekhard, a modern town along the Ob. There are several sights in the city, and Obdorskij Ostrog is the most famous. Obdorskij Ostrog is a reconstruction of a Cossack fort from the 17th century, which gives an impression of Obdorsk at that time. The fort was originally built without the use of nails, and it is located on the site where the Cossacks once founded the facility that became today’s Salekhard. From Obdorskij Ostrog, you can walk along the pleasant pedestrian street, Ulitsa Lenina, to the city center.

Here you can visit the cozy city park and Saint Peter and Paul Church, which was built 1886-1893, and which is therefore Jamal’s oldest church. You can continue to Ploshad Lenina square, where you can see Salekhard’s statue of the head of state Lenin, and a little to the north of the square is the interesting Jamal-Nenets Museum. It is a regional museum where you can get an insight into the region’s history, culture and nature.

You can also go to various monuments in and around Salekhard. North of the city center you can visit the beautifully landscaped Park Pobedy, which is a large memorial park for the victory and for those who fell during the Second World War. Close to this is the most famous monument, the Salekhard Stele, which stands at latitude 66° 33’39” north of the equator and thereby marks the Arctic Circle. Along the main road to the city’s airport stands a locomotive as a monument to Gulag 501 and the construction of the so-called Stalin Railway, while a little north of the city along the same road you can see the city’s mammoth monument, which is located at the ferry crossing over the Ob.