Novosibirsk

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Novosibirsk (, ) is the third largest city in Russia after Moscow and Saint Petersburg and the largest in Siberia. The metropolis of Novosibirsk Oblast in Western Siberia has 1.61 million. Residents (as of 2018). It owes its foundation to the construction of a bridge of the Trans-Siberian Railway over the river Ob in 1893. Today, in the Novosibirsk metropolitan area, there are six bridges over the Ob, which is almost a kilometre wide there. The name Novosibirsk ("New Siberia") has been used since 1926.

Geography
The city lies east of the Ural Mountains in the south of the West Siberian lowlands in the time zone UTC+7 (4 hours before Moscow time (UTC+3)). With the construction of the railway bridge over the Ob began the rise from a small village to a city of millions.

In the then Novonikolaevsk, as a symbol of the geographical center of the Russian Empire, the chapel of St. Nikolai was built in 1915 on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. Today, the chapel in the center of Novosibirsk is a special attraction and landmark of the city. However, the geographical center of present-day Russia has shifted to Krasnoyarsk.

History
The history of Novosibirsk is closely related to the development of Western Siberia. The settlement was initially called Novaya Derevnya (New Village), Gusevka, Kravshchokowski, Alexandrovsky, Novo-Nikolaevsky, until it received the name Novonikolaevsk (Новониколаевск, after the name of the last tsar of Russia Nicholas II) in 1903 with the city rights. In 1926 the town was renamed Novosibirsk.

Alexander III. began in the late 19th century. In 1890-1900 the Trans-Siberian Railway was built to ensure the connection of the Siberian region with its wealth of natural resources to Moscow and Western Russia. The connection was to cross the Ob river at the old town of Kolywan, but the plans were changed so that the bridge was built near the small village of Krivoshchokowo. Since many railway workers were necessary for the project, a settlement on the bridge quickly emerged.

The official founding date is the laying of the foundation stone of the railway bridge over the Ob with a divine service on the 20th. May 1893. In the spring of 1897 the bridge was opened for traffic, the station with infrastructure already existed. As the surrounding settlements quickly used this opportunity to transport their goods, the city grew rapidly. Novonikolaevsk already had 7,800 inhabitants by this time.

In December 1903 Novonikolaevsk gained official status as a city. Including the population of the area, it had 22,000 inhabitants. In 1906, the first Siberian bank was founded in Novonikolaevsk, in 1915 there were already five banks. The city quickly became the financial and commercial center of the region. In 1907 she was granted all rights of self-government. The population was 47,000. Shortly before the October Revolution