Surgut is a large city located along the northern bank of the river Ob. The city was founded by Tsar Fyodor I in 1594 as a small fort. Two years later, a trading house, Gostinyj Dvor, was built in the city, which for the following centuries was a regional center for the Russian development of Siberia. The fort grew into a village surrounded by moats and other defenses, and several workshops were established in the town. However, Surgut was not yet a big city, and throughout the 17th century the population was stable at around 200.

Over time, various institutions were established in Surgut, including several schools in the 19th century, but the centuries brought only a small growth to the village, which at the end of the 19th century was home to just over 1,100 citizens. In 1926, Surgut, with 1,300 inhabitants, was downgraded to the status of a village, but then the town’s growth started.

Within the following decade, a fish factory, agriculture and timber industry were established, and in the 1930s the area was searched for minerals. It took until the 1960s before rapid urbanization took place in Surgut, which started when oil and gas production started around the city. In 1965, Surgut formally became a city, and the population has increased from approximately 6,000 in 1959 to 400,000 today.

Surgut is today a relatively new city with growth that only started in the 1960s, and you can start at Ploshad Sovetov, which is the city’s central square. The Surgut Philharmonic and the city’s town hall are located here, both buildings in modern architecture. A little south-west from here you can take a walk in Old Surgut, which is a historical-cultural center in the style of an open-air museum with buildings in traditional style from the region. Here you can see Surgut’s only wooden church and several wooden buildings which are open as museums and as workshops for artists who revive folk art and traditions. Opposite Old Surgut you can see the city’s modern university building.

East of the center you can visit the Cathedral of the Annunciation of Christ with gilded domes and a beautiful church room with wall paintings and iconostasis. Next to the cathedral, you can visit the Historical Park Russia – My History, which depicts various topics in Russian history in an exciting way. From here you can go east to a river promenade with a panoramic view of the Ob. You can also go north to the Surgut Art Museum, which was founded in 1992, and which exhibits works by artists from northern and western Siberia and other Russian art from the 19th century to the present day.

North of the center you can also walk along the boulevard Prospekt Lenina, where the Monument to the Founders of Surgut can be seen. The monument is one of the city’s landmarks and was erected in the middle of a large roundabout. A little north from here you can see a clock tower, which for many will bring memories of Big Ben in London.

The tower and tower building were built in 2004 as an international school for foreign languages. If you continue north, you will come to the Holy Trinity Cathedral, which was built in 2015. There is also a special sight to the west of the city, the Surgut Bridge, which spans the Ob. The bridge is over two kilometers long and it opened as the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world with a single pylon.