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Tomsk
(pop. 520,000) and Vladivostok (pop. 700,000) are two cities in the former
USSR which have very different origins but which experienced similar levels
of growth, development processes and urban planning schemes especially
after the Bolshevik Revolution. Tomsk, the earlier city, was founded in
1604 as a military stockade located on the right bank of the Tom’ River,
about 60km above its confluence with the Ob’ (Murashova, 1954). For its
first eight decades, the Tomsk stockade protected the local fur trade routes;
classified as a town in 1629, it remained of little importance until the
eighteenth century, when its administrative functions expanded in tandem
with the development of its Siberian hinterland (Gorod Tomsk, 1912). More
recently, Tomsk has been a centre for wood processing, engineering and
petro-chemical industries, as well as nuclear research at Tomsk-7.
Vladivostok,
a naval port, was not founded until 1860. Its initial growth was haphazard
and the settlement did not achieve significant importance in the region
until after the coming of the railway and military development following
the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. Today it is the Russian Federation’s
largest city on the Pacific seaboard and owes this status to its excellent
natural harbour and location at the far south-eastern extremity of the
Russian land mass, where it is the terminus of the Trans Siberian Railway.
Until recently, Vladivostok’s industries included ship repair yards, railway
works and furniture production (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Location of
Tomsk and Vladivostok in the Russian Federation
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