Kurgan population: agglomeration formation, number, standard of living

Kurgan is the administrative center of the Kurgan region, the territorial settlement is located on the banks of the Tobol River in the Urals Federal District. The city has a long history, and in modern realities does not differ at all by the low standard of living of the population.

Brief history of urban agglomeration

In the second half of the seventeenth century, on the bank of the Tobol River, a peasant Timofei Onisimovich Nevezhin settled, and after him came other settlers. After a short time, a prison and a posad appeared. So Tsarevo was founded. The official date of the formation of the urban settlement on the site of the modern Kurgan at the moment is considered to be 1679.

Its first name was given to the settlement in Tsarev by a burial mound, which was discovered in the 20th century by the Ural archaeologist Konstantin Salnikov. Later, after moving downstream, the settlement was renamed the Tsarekurgan Sloboda (Tsarevo-Kurgan), Kurgan, the city was officially named since the end of 1782.

The processes of formation of the basic urban infrastructure intensified in the first half of the nineteenth century. Then the first educational institution, a fire station, a hospital opened in the city. For some time the settlement was used by the Soviet authorities as a place of exile, but by 1856 the Kurgan had become a major center for trade and agriculture at that time, an orphanage, a kind of hotel, an insurance company, a dining room for those in need, and a telephone line had been built in the city.

During the Great Patriotic War several evacuated enterprises worked in the city, the population of Kurgan was replenished with 150 thousand evacuated citizens from the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSR. Further administrative reforms were carried out not once, which also influenced the population: in 1943 Kurgan became the regional center of the newly formed region, in 1944 the settlement included several more adjacent districts, and in 1962 it was developed and approved by the authorities A plan for the development of the city, providing for the expansion to almost three hundred thousand inhabitants.

Today's population and other demographic indicators

The population of the Kurgan is just over three hundred thousand people (according to 2016 data). According to the national composition of the city residents are divided as follows:

• Russians (almost 96%);
• Ukrainians (slightly less than 1%);
• Tatars (0.5%);
• Kazakhs (0.4%);
• Other national groups (slightly more than 2%).

The population density in the Kurgan is 827 people per square kilometer.

Population dynamics

The population of Kurgan as of 2016 was 325 thousand 189 people. After a short improvement in the demographic situation, the decline in the birth rate again coincided with an increase in the death rate per 1000 people. In 2014-2015, the population of the Kurgan, although very slightly, increased. True, a slight improvement in the overall demographic situation did not save.

In general, the first statistics describing the population of the Kurgan date back to 1682. Then there were only 200 people living on the territory of the village. The mark of a thousand inhabitants of the population of the Kurgan reached by 1788, and by the beginning of the twentieth century there were already 10,000 people. Negative indicators of the population compared with the previous reporting period was not observed either during the years of the revolution, or during the First and Second World Wars.

Stably negative dynamics (excluding 1997-1999) has been observed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even active social policy, improvement of the quality of life of the population and provision of jobs did not become the reasons for changing the number of residents of the city in a larger direction. The only thing that pleases against the backdrop of negative dynamics is the fact that the population of the city of Kurgan in quantitative terms is not reducing as fast as in some other settlements. So the situation can still be corrected.

The main causes of negative population dynamics

The main reason that the population of the Kurgan continues to decline on the background of active demographic policy and improvement of the quality of life of the population is a powerful migration outflow. Many residents prefer the capital city to their capital or larger industrial centers.

Living standards of the population: social security, transport and infrastructure

G. Kurgan, the population of which falls due to the activation of migration processes, remains quite suitable for a comfortable life in a populated area. The unemployment rate is at the level of only 1.1%, new infrastructure facilities are constantly being built and put into operation, the residents are provided with sufficient number of social institutions. Unless the ecological situation in the city remains not entirely favorable, the problem of waste disposal is too acute. In the rest, the standard of living of the Kurgan population is quite high.