Novosibirsk or Krivosnosib?
On the 100th anniversary of the toponym
Author: Andrey Filimonov.
Novosibirsk appeared on the map exactly 100 years ago—on February 12, 1926. Before that, it was known as Novo-Nikolaevsk. In the Russian Empire, there were several cities named in honor of Tsar Nicholas—one in Ukraine, another on the Volga (now Pugachev), a third on the Amur, and a fourth in Kazakhstan (today's Kostanay briefly bore the tsar's name). The future Novosibirsk became the fifth Nikolaevsk, and before that, it was briefly known as "the settlement of Aleksandrovsky." Clearly, this was referring to Alexander III, during whose reign the new settlement appeared on the banks of the Ob River. However, according to the tradition of that pious era, it was customary to name cities and villages not after the tsar, but after the saint for whom the tsar was named. The newspaper "Tomsky Listok" reported in 1895 that "The village of Krivoshchekovsky, in view of the construction of a church in the name of the holy and faithful prince Alexander Nevsky, will be renamed to Aleksandrovsky, and this will be announced to all residents through the head of the police department of the city of Lyapustin."
It's impossible to understand Russian toponymy without a police chief.
Before the residents of the future capital of Siberia had time to get used to the name Aleksandrovsk, local authorities began a campaign to rename the settlement Novo-Nikolaevsk. Alexander III died in Yalta, and Siberian officials rushed to extol the young tsar, who had once personally poured the first wheelbarrow of earth at the start of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Initially, the future city of a million people began as a "nakhalovka"—an unauthorized cluster of houses and barracks clinging to the new railway. No one expected or planned for the city to emerge on the site of a railway station. It arose spontaneously, thanks to peasants migrating to Siberia. Many of them preferred the trading business in the rapidly growing settlement to village life. It seems that the site chosen by engineer Mikhailovsky, the builder of the Trans-Siberian Railway, for the bridge across the Ob River proved to be a place of power. The people here multiplied and multiplied, as in China.
The population of the little-known "Nikolay-Aleksandrovsk" grew rapidly. In 1895, 5 ordinary people lived there, and just two years later, Nicholas II received a telegram from Novo-Nikolayevsk, which read: "Your Imperial Majesty, heed the 10-strong plea of your loyal slaves. Grant land for rent at 40 kopecks per dessiatine..."
Within another 20 years, the "loyal slaves" numbered nearly 100. Novo-Nikolaevsk grew by leaps and bounds, fueled by the energy of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and was already beginning to overtake the provincial capital, Tomsk, in population.
For its part, ancient (by Siberian standards) Tomsk began to envy its young neighbor, even when it was literally a nobody. In 1891, engineer Mikhailovsky re-examined the calculations of his colleague, engineer Krivoshein, and concluded that extending the Trans-Siberian Railway through Tomsk was unprofitable, and that building the line 200 miles further south would save 3 million rubles. It's worth remembering, however, that in his spare time, engineer Mikhailovsky was the writer Garin, who harbored a profound aesthetic aversion to Tomsk.
"A patch of gray sky, an empty hillside, a row of gray fences, houses with ruffled roofs, small windows, and low rooms—that's the city of Tomsk. At nine o'clock in the evening, the streets are empty; the dogs are let loose... A remote, boring province, the wheel of life has ground all the content of this life into a dull, uninteresting, and tasteless sludge." — he wrote from an unloved city, having stopped there on business.
Perhaps the writer's hostility also manifested itself in the engineer's work. While designing the "Tomsk branch"—a single-track railway intended to provide consolation for the provincial capital—Garin-Mikhailovsky located the station several miles from the city.
Tomsk merchants were tearing their hair out, calculating the lost profits due to rising transportation costs, and journalists were sneering. The Tomsk newspaper Novaya Sibir published a cartoon: the provincial capital in the background, a railroad in the foreground and a steam locomotive with smoke emitting from its chimney in the shape of a fig, with the caption "Bypassed again, damned thing." The implication was that first the Trans-Siberian Railway had been moved away from Tomsk, and now there was a new humiliation—a whole hour's trudge by cab over rough roads to the station.
But the story isn't about Tomsk, but about its more fortunate neighbor. In the spring of 1917, double-headed eagles and other monarchical symbols were torn down from the facades of every Russian city. At the same time, they got rid of the old-regime names. Two months after the February Revolution, Novo-Nikolaevsk deputies petitioned the Provisional Government to rename the city. The Provisional Government didn't object; it had more pressing matters to attend to. The deputies debated which name to choose. Many favored "Obsk," arguing that it was a tradition to name cities after rivers. Siberia is full of such examples: Omsk, Tomsk. What's wrong with Obsk?
This is met with the objection that yes, such a tradition does exist, but it's also part of the old world, which we want to renounce. Therefore, the name must be modern and relevant. Therefore, it's proposed to rename the city... Kooperatorsk!
While they were debating, autumn arrived, and with it a new revolution, after which everything turned red. Now they decided to call the city on the Ob River Krasnoobsk. After the execution of the royal family, it hadn't quite worked out that way—Nikolai had died, but his name lived on. But before they could make a decision, the White Czechs arrived, and the commissars had no time for toponymy.
The issue arose for the second time in 1925, when Novo-Nikolaevsk was designated the capital of the vast Sibkrai (coinciding with the administrative boundaries of the Siberian Federal District). The name of the last tsar in the name of the capital of Soviet Siberia was a distinctly offensive one. In the fall of 1925, the topic of renaming became public: on November 17, at the District Congress of Soviets, a proposal was made to remove Nicholas's name and call the city "at least Novosibirsk."
The congress deputies write a petition for renaming to the “all-Union elder” Comrade Kalinin, and then the discussion begins.
A referendum, of course, wasn't held. But proposals from below were accepted. The people weren't silent in this process—new versions of the city's name were discussed at work collective meetings, and individual citizens also sent letters with their ideas. The newspaper "Sovetskaya Sibir" published them almost daily, and not only from "city dwellers" but from all over the Siberian region.
The list sounded like a poem about a new life, in which geography is intertwined with ideology and the cult of personality blossoms.
In addition to the straightforward names derived from the Ob (Obsk, Ob'gorod, Krasnoobsk, Krasno-Obsk) and Siberia (Sibirsk, Sibgrad, Sibtsentrograd, Tsentrosibirsk, Sibkraigrad, Sibnovgorod), the list included ideologically consistent names: Kommungrad, Oktyabrgrad, Sovetsk/Sovetgrad, Krasnosibirsk, Krasnooktyabrsk, Bolshevik, Pionergrad/Pioner; with a particularly prominent Leninist line: Sibleninsk, Novoleninsk, Vladlen, Leninsib, Leninoznamensk-on-Obi; and attempts to immortalize the leadership: Kalininsk, Kaliningrad-on-Obi, Lashevich and Lashevichgrad. (M. M. Lashevich, the main security official in Siberia at the time, combined the positions of chairman of the Siberian Revolutionary Committee and commander of the troops of the Siberian District.) Someone suggested something unpronounceable and insane: “Partizanopol”.
A district congress deputy representing "all unorganized peasants and farm laborers of Siberia" proposed another name, reminiscent of antiquity: Orevsib: "I am an insignificant speck of dust at this grand congress of the Soviet of Workers' Peasants and Red Army Deputies, and I have the happiness and honor of representing the lower classes of a remote Siberian village." I wonder how the unorganized peasants managed to organize for the election of this deputy with his proposal?
The competition found room for national exotica and revolutionary futurism: Kurultai, Novo-Isker, Budivostok, Novyi Luch Sibiri, Revkraisib/Revkraigrad, and the unpronounceable... Revmarksengsk—probably sent by ill-wishers from Tomsk.
It's also worth mentioning the variant "Petukhov/Petukhovsk"—in honor of the revolutionary Alexander Petukhov, executed by the Whites. The town was very lucky it wasn't named that. After all, Russia is a country of criminal notions, and the residents of Petukhovsk would always feel uneasy.
The American Dream was a separate topic. In those years, America wasn't a class enemy, but rather a "cash friend"—donations flowed in, and tens of thousands of "useful idiots" arrived, sincere believers in the Soviet brand of communism. Naive Americans created communes and toiled for free for the Soviet regime. Baseball championships were held in Siberia, the registry office in the city of Tayga registered newborns named Charlie, and if you stepped outside, you could stumble upon a red banner proclaiming, "Communism is Soviet power plus the Fordization of industry," signed by L. Trotsky. Communist leaders entertained themselves with ideological arithmetic in their spare time, figuring out what they could add to the already unattractive Soviet regime.
The comparison to Chicago has long been a journalistic cliché for this rapidly growing Siberian city. It is said to have been blessed by the visionary People's Commissar Lunacharsky, who would occasionally visit to feel the pulse of the new life.
"If five years ago Novosibirsk was still a semi-village, today it is a unique city that has grown into a capital of two hundred thousand and is relentlessly rushing forward, like a real Siberian Chicago," — wrote Lunacharsky.
In the mid-twenties, the city acquired its own film studio, and if the "New Chicago" proposal had won, local filmmakers would have been celebrated as "New Hollywood." But it didn't work out; Trotsky's "Fordization" never caught on.
Someone's suggestion of "Krasnochikagsk"—in which the Soviet prefix and stern masculine ending accompany the American toponym—is a particularly amusing anecdote. Had such a renaming occurred, New Hollywood might have released the crime drama "Showdown in Krasnochikagsk."
As expected, the boring "at least" Novosibirsk won. The name, without any imagination, packed undeniable facts: the city is new and located in Siberia. Moreover, it presaged a new era of aesthetic twilight—a gray military jacket and nothing personal, except a cult. It's no coincidence that Novosibirsk became one of the first Russian cities in the 21st century to erect a monument to Stalin (2018).
What's surprising is that Novosibirsk historians and local historians still can't agree on who should be considered the city's "godfather."
According to the most popular version, the word "Novo-Sibirsk" (that's right, with a hyphen) first appears in a letter from mining engineer Konstantin Tulchinsky to the head of the Siberian Industrial Bureau, Anton Tamarin, on November 11, 1925. The engineer's logic is as simple as heresy: Siberia is building a "new life," so the name "Novo-Sibirsk" suits the capital.
A parallel literary theory links the city's name to the writer Vivian Itin, who wrote the first Soviet science fiction novel (six months before Tolstoy's "Aelita") and was a champion of socialist realism, glorifying the "new life" in his works. It's a shame that the Soviet government failed to appreciate the writer's sincerity and repressed Itin in 1938 as a "Japanese spy" and a "right-wing Trotskyist."
However, the Soviet authorities also repressed Konstantin Tulchinsky a year later.
Novosibirsk Museum Director Konstantin Golodyaev claims that Itin, although he participated in the discussion of the topic, proposed "Novo-Leninsk," citing the idea that "Siberia is moving toward a new life along the path of Leninism." It's also possible, however, that the science fiction writer was betting "on both sides," nominating two names at once.
The decision, however, was made not by the artistic commission, but by the congress. In early December 1925, delegates to the 1st Siberian Regional Congress of Soviets, as expected, approved the name "Novosibirsk" and submitted a request to Moscow.
What followed was pure bureaucracy. At first, Moscow grumbled that "Novosibirsk" sounded stupid (if "Sibirsk" doesn't exist, then where does "novo" come from?), but then they waved their hands, saying that Siberians don't need logic, they'll get by with it.
Siberians objected. A certain citizen sent a note to the local newspaper:
"They say that Siberia has no Starosibirsk. Not quite so, — wrote citizen Zhernkov. “In Siberia there is Starosibirsk – this is the city of Tomsk – a trading intermediary between the West and East of Siberia, whose three-hundred-year-old gray hairs evoke in our memory the old Siberia of the Moscow highway, the cart, the whip, and exile…”
Thus, the concept took shape: Tomsk was old, had had its day, and Novosibirsk (as the newspapers wrote) was "evolving toward a new life." And so, on February 12, 1926, it happened! The city officially became Novosibirsk (the form "Novo-Sibirsk" was also found in documents).
Even when discussing the new name, science fiction writer Itin wrote that the name "Novosibirsk" evoked associations with the New Siberian Islands near Chukotka, named in the mid-19th century. This is a very accurate observation, capturing the very essence of the city, which in just 70 years has grown from a railroad settlement to a megacity with a population of over a million. Throughout its history, Novosibirsk has expanded according to the "island" principle—new districts were built at a distance from each other and from the city center. The record holder: Akademgorodok—30 kilometers from the building of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences in the city center.
In the second half of the 20th century, Novosibirsk surpassed all other cities in the USSR in area, second only to Moscow and Leningrad. They sayNovosibirsk residents are secretly proud of their city's size and the fact that you could live here your entire life but never dare to travel to the Left Bank. The vast and mysterious Pervomaysky District is separated from the city by the swampy, impassable floodplain of the Inya River, like Venice by its lagoon. The Zaeltsovsky District, located somewhere far to the east, is so deserted that it was given over to a new zoo—the old one huddled near the central market, giving rise to vague, eerie rumors. Dimly lit paths with cracked plaster statues of pioneers stretch for kilometers through the Zaeltsovsky Forest, like in the cartoon "Well, Just You Wait!"
It's hard to love such a city, just as it's probably hard to love the New Siberian Islands. Nights here can be quite eerie, not just on the outskirts, but right in the center, on Lenin Square, where a giant granite statue of Ilyich stands, legs apart, accompanied by a 7-meter-tall man with a gun, the wind blowing snow through them toward the columns of the opera house. In 1925, Novosibirsk was conceived to build the largest theater on the planet, on whose stage workers' demonstrations—200–300 strong—were to march every May 1st and November 7th. But the conservative Stalin, inspecting Siberia for progress in collectivization, stopped in Novosibirsk and personally nixed the romantic megaproject of a great proletarian theater.
But even what stands in this place now makes an indelible impression on visitors.
At the beginning of the 21st century, an embarrassing incident occurred: neighboring rival Tomsk, which Novosibirsk had grown accustomed to looking down on, unexpectedly managed to win the favor of President Putin and received some very tempting projects from the Tsar, including the Special Economic Zone that Putin had initially promised to Novosibirsk's Akademgorodok. This was money one could dream of. Tomsk considered this revenge for the Trans-Siberian Railway. Meanwhile, Novosibirsk was upset and, in its grief, decided that the unfortunate name was to blame.
The local newspaper Novaya Sibir (which appropriated the name of an old Tomsk liberal newspaper from before the Revolution) published an article entitled "Program and Anagram," which offered a "mystical" explanation for the president's dislike of Novosibirsk:
"Look at the anagrams made up of the letters of the word 'Tomsk', — the authors of the article wrote, "For example, 'Mostk' or 'Moskt'... Don't they seem like perfectly worthy associations with a bridge to something, with the brain, and even with Moscow? But no matter how we twist the name of our beloved hometown, nothing sensible comes out: Svinoriobsk, Srinoobibsk, Krivosnosib, or even some downright crap—Ibivnorossik, or at best, something like Snobsrikovo."
There's something truthful in this joke. The name "Novosibirsk" is completely random and says nothing about the city—it could have been any settlement in Soviet Siberia. But the names that didn't win the 1926 competition are a fertile field for alternative history for anyone with an imagination. The city's structure and history would probably have been different if it had been called Orevsib, or Budivostok, or Partizanopol. Not to mention New Chicago...
