Kurgan is the largest city and the administrative center of Kurgan Oblast. The city’s history began around the year 1660, when an imperial citadel was built on this site. In the following years, a settlement arose at the citadel, which was a border fort that protected the area from attacks by nomadic tribes. Kurgan was given the status of a city by Empress Catherine II in 1782, and on the same occasion the city was given its current name. Throughout the Kurgan’s first century, the city had been burned and rebuilt several times, and by 1695 it had been moved from its original location.

The population of Kurgan grew, and from 599 citizens in 1782, the number of citizens grew to over 1,500 at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1804, Kurgan became the capital of the Kurgan district, and during this period a school, hospital and a fire station were built in the city. Over the course of the century, Kurgan developed into a trading town where agricultural products were processed and traded. At the end of the 19th century, the railway and the Trans-Siberian Railway came to Kurgan, and this created new growth.

From the year 1900 to 1910, the Kurgan grew from approx. 10,000 inhabitants to 35,000. At this time, Kurgan was an industrial and cultural city that became part of the Soviet Union after several battles in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. During World War II, some factories were evacuated from the western part of the Soviet Union to, among other things, Kurgan, and this strengthened the growth and population, which doubled from 1939 to 1956. After the war, a new urban plan was drawn up for the center of Kurgan, and in 1962 a new and expanded plan approved, and it provided space for 275,000 citizens in the city.

Today you can make some nice walks in the Kurgan central quarter, which lies between the railway and the Tobol River. Ploshad Lenina forms the central square of the city, and here you can see the Kurgan’s statue of the head of state Lenin. Lenin stands in front of the city’s town hall, and opposite the town hall you can see the Kurgan Oblast government building. To the west of this you can visit the Kurgan regional museum, and in front of it the eternal flame burns at a monument to those who fell during the Second World War.

Next to the government building in the other direction is the city’s neoclassical drama theater, and behind it is the City Park, where you can see Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which is the Kurgan’s main church. The cathedral was consecrated by the bishop of Tobolsk in 1902. During the Soviet Union, the church was closed from 1929 to 1989, when the building served other purposes. Today you can see a beautiful interior in the cathedral.

From the City Park, you can continue in the direction of Tobol, where you can see the beautiful house that the Decembrist Andrej Rosen acquired in 1833. Rosen planted fruit trees and laid out flower beds, and you can still feel the time from that time, even though the house today is furnished as teaching place. Close to this is Kurgan’s city history museum, where you can learn more about the city’s development and historical highlights.

Continuing towards Tobol, you can visit the Dekabrist Museum House, which is housed in the house where Mikhail Naryshkin lived with his family from 1833 to 1837 after a sentence as a participant in the Dekabrist Rebellion in 1825. The beautiful building is furnished faithfully to the times according to accurate depictions in contemporaries exchanges of letters. In contrast, Kurgan’s modern philharmonic is close to the house.