About The Name Of Our City

Let me begin by saying, the city where we live is called Petrozavodsk. Students who study Russian will understand (without any troubles) what it means. But do you know the origin of this name?

To illustration this history let us begin. The first settlers appeared there about 8000 years ago.

Abraham Ortelius’s map was published in 1592, it tells that the settlement of modern Petrozavodsk was called Onegaborg (“The castle on Onego). Onego is one of the largest lakes in Russia which is stretched along Petrozavodsk). But according to scientists’ mind, it must have been a mistake, because the settlement on the White Sea could be called this way.

Moreover, it is easy to guess that “Petrozavodsk” is translated as «Peter's factory» (the factory of Peter the Great) who was the first Russian emperor and found this factory. This foundation was the reason for the city creation.

But originally the City was found on August, 29th in 1703 as the settlement near the Petrovsky (initially — Shuisky) factory. In 1734 the factory was closed, but the settlement continued to exist.

Earlier, in XVI century two villages — Sulazhgora and Solomennoye were arisen here, on the areas of Petrozavodsk.

In 1773 the new factory building began. We should remember the first variant of name was New Petrovsky but in 1774 during the factory operation the new name “Aleksandrovsky” was appropriated to the factory. In 1777 according to the Catherine II decree the settlement of Petrovsky factory was transformed to the town, Petrozavodsk.

In addition, in 1781 Petrozavodsk became the centre of the Olonetsky province. During 1784-1785 the governor was one of the greatest Russian poets, Gabriel Romanovich Derzhavin. Since 1920’s Petrozavodsk has become the capital of Karelia.

We must bear in mind in 1940—1956 Petrozavodsk was the capital of the Karelia-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic.

On October, 2nd in 1941 the town was occupied by the Finnish army and renamed to Äänislinna (in the Russian transcription this is the variant of "Jaanislinna" what means «the Fortress on It», also people have recently used "Enislinna"). On October 14th in 1941 in Petrozavodsk the first Finnish concentration camp was formed during the Second World War. In total there were 7 concentration camps in the town. We might add that in February 1943 many names of streets were renamed to Finnish way.

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