Names
Ulan-Ude was first called Udinskoye (У́динское) for its location on the Uda River. From around 1735, the settlement was called Udinsk (У́динск) and was granted town status under that name in 1775.
The name was changed to Verkhneudinsk, literally "Upper Udinsk" (Верхнеу́динск), in 1783 to differentiate it from Nizhneudinsk ("Lower Udinsk") lying on a different Uda River near Irkutsk which gained town status that year. The "upper" and "lower" refer to positions of the two cities relative to each other, not the location of the cities on their respective Uda rivers. Verkhneudinsk lies at the mouth of its Uda, i.e. the lower end, while Nizhneudinsk is along the middle stretch of its Uda.
The current name was given to the city in 1934 and means "red Uda" in Buryat, reflecting the Soviet Union's Communist ideology.
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