Magadan is a Russian port city on the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast. The city’s history started with its foundation in 1929, and it quickly grew as the center of the region’s labor camps, where many were sent from the 1930s. There were deposits in the Kolyma region north of Magadan, and the city developed as a shipping port.

In 1939, Magadan formally became a city, and it became the target for the construction of the Kolyma highway, which connects Magadan with Nizhny Bestyakh near Yakutsk, from where there are connections through Siberia to Moscow. For a time, Magadan also had a railway connection to the city of Palatka, while today there are plans to build a railway to Nizhny Bestyakh.

Today, Magadan is a regional metropolis where there are several buildings worth seeing, even though the city is not very old. Trinity Cathedral/Троицкий собор is the most important church in the city. The cathedral with its golden domes was built from 2001 to 2008 in a style inspired by the architecture of Vladimir-Suzdal. The church is one of the largest in Russia and is beautifully decorated with murals and a tall icon wall.

You can also take a walk along the main street Prospekt Lenina/Проспект Ленина, where you can see the cinema Gornjak/Кинотеатр Горняк and enter the city park, Park Kultury i Otdykha/Парк культуры и отдыха. At the southwestern end of the street stands the metal tower Televyshka/Телевышка, and if you continue in this direction, you will come to a vantage point with a view to the bay to the west, where the Magadan lighthouse can be seen a little to the north.

There are several cultural institutions to visit in central Magadan. You can, for example, take a trip to the Magadan Music and Drama Theater/Магаданский музыкальный и драматический театр. If you want to learn more about the region around Magadan, you can visit the regional museum, Magadanskiy Oblastnoy Krayevedcheskiy Muzey/Магаданский областной краеведческий музей. Close to this is Cosmonaut Square, where the city’s monument to Lenin stands.