Kemerovo

The history of Kemerovo comes up to the period of exploration of Siberia and the founding of village Sheglovo at that place in 1701. In 1918 the village was transformed into a town Sheglovsk. In 1932 Sheglovsk changed its name into Kemerovo. Since 1943 Kemerovo has been the centre of Kemerovsky district. The history of the city is tightly connected with the history of mining in this area. One of the biggest mines became the city-forming factory of Kemerovo and determine the status of the city as the city of miners. Nowadays Kemerovo is one of the biggest industrial cantres of Siberia.

The city has a lot of different museums and theatres. In the Museum of Local Lore you can find out about the nature of the land, its exciting past, culture and traditions. The local Museum of Fine Arts is one of the biggest art museums in Siberia . It has many works of arts like paintings, sculptures and so on. The cultural life of the city is very colourful and diverse. The locals and the tourists are able to visit such theatres like the drama theatre, the musical theatre, the puppet theatre, the Studio-Theatre "Synthesis" and so on. During the year a lot of theatrical, art and musical festivals take place in this city. They are always visited by many guest from different parts of Russia.

The exceptional place in the city's landscape is occupied by the majestic Snamensky temple. It has become the greatest tourist sight of the city and the most beautiful building in the whole city. Talking about parks we should mention the Victory Park on the left side of the river Iskitimka. There are a lot of sculptures of tanks and artillery, monuments dedicated to G. Zhukov and war workers.

One of the most interesting museums of this district is the historico-cultural open-air museum "Red Hill" ("Krasnaya Gorka"). There you can visit the museum mine, where you can learn about the history and conditions of the miners' toil and living. Nearby Kemerovo there's a unique  historico-cultural open-air museum of primitive petroglyphic art called "Tomskaya Pisanitsa".