History
The history of Nizhny Tagil begins with the opening of the Vysokogorsky iron ore quarry in 1696. The deposits were particularly rich, and included lodes of pure magnetic iron. The surrounding landscape provided everything needed for a successful and productive mining and smelting operation — rivers for transport, forests for fuel, and suitable climate.
The city itself was legally founded in October 1722 among settlements connected to the construction of the Vyysky copper smelting plant, owned by Nikolay Demidov. Over the following decades, the city developed as one of the early centers of Russian industrialization, and it has been a major producer of cast iron and steel.
The first Russian steam locomotive was constructed there in 1833, and the father-and-son engineers who developed it, Ye.A. and M.Ye. Cherepanov (Черепанов), were in 1956 commemorated by an 8-meter (26 ft) bronze statue (executed by sculptor A. S. Kondratyev and architect A. V. Sotnikov) which stands in the center of the Theatrical Square in the heart of downtown.
Town status was granted to Nizhny Tagil in 1919.
According to some sources, the copper for the skin of the Statue of Liberty was mined and refined in Nizhny Tagil.
Read more about this topic: Nizhny Tagil
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“It may be well to remember that the highest level of moral aspiration recorded in history was reached by a few ancient Jews—Micah, Isaiah, and the rest—who took no count whatever of what might not happen to them after death. It is not obvious to me why the same point should not by and by be reached by the Gentiles.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)