Sovetskaya Gavan

Sovetskaya Gavan (Russian Советская Гавань, also Sovetskaya Gavan ) is a town in Khabarovsk (Russia) with 27,712 inhabitants (as of October 14, 2010 ).

Geography

The city is located about 640 km east of the regional capital of Khabarovsk on the bay of Tatarensundes, the strait between Japanese sea and Ochotskischem sea.

The city of Sovetskaya Gavan is the region under the direct authority and administrative center of the homonymous Rajons.

History

On May 23, 1853 Lieutenant Nikolai Boschnjak discovered on the coast of Tatarensundes the existing of several bays, natural harbor at the southern shore lies the city of Sovetskaya Gavan today, and named it after the Russian Tsar Nikolai I. Gawain imperatora Nikolaja ( port of Nicholas ), later abbreviated to Imperatorskaja Gawain (Kaiser harbor). On 4 August the same year, the explorers and later Admiral Gennady Nevelskoi erected here a military post, which was named after the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich General - Admiral Grand Duke Constantine items.

Following the temporary abandonment of the post, the area was awarded at the beginning of the 20th century a center of felling and trafficking for the concessions to foreign, for example, Canadian companies.

In 1922 the name was changed from the harbor and settlement in Sovetskaya Gavan ( Soviet port).

During the Second World War began with the construction of a railway line from the right bank of the Amur Komsomolsk-on- Amur towards the Pacific coast and selected as the endpoint Sovetskaya Gavan. 1941 was the place municipal law, 1945, the line was opened. Plans of the 1930s had provided such a route already as the eastern section of the Baikal - Amur Mainline (BAM ); so it was the first actually finished section of this line. After completion of the Amurbrücke 1975 and BAM Taischet - Tynda - Komsomolsk -on-Amur, the original project were realized in the 1980s.

From 1950 to 1954 the prison camp existed here Ulminlag ( Ulminski ITL) in the Gulag system.

Demographics

Note: Census data

Culture and sights

Sovetskaya Gavan has since 1966 a local museum.

Economy and infrastructure

A central role is played by the port industry: Sovetskaya Gavan has a deep-water commercial and fishing port as well as ship repair yards, next to the food industry ( eg fish processing). Since extension of the 30 km northern port Wanino to a ferry service to Sakhalin in the 1970s, however, the importance of Sovetskaya Gavan declined as a trading port.

Sovetskaya Gavan was until the 1990s also one of the most important strongholds of the Russian Pacific Fleet.

Sovetskaya Gavan is the terminus of a railway line from Komsomolsk-on- Amur, which today represents the eastern section of the Baikal - Amur Mainline, and where connection is made at a distance to Khabarovsk.