Between the mountain and the river: making the urban space of Zlatoust, 1930-1940s

The paper deals with the process of development of the urban and territorial structure of the city of Zlatoust during the era of forced industrialization and war, 1920s to 1940s. This process was largely determined by the difficult landscape of the city which is located in the mountain valley of Ai river in Southern Urals, and by the specifics of industrial development under planned economy. The author shows that Zlatoust started to grow as a major industrial center since the early 20^th century, when the new metallurgical plant was constructed in the northern part of the city, and the city was connected by the railroad in its easternmost part. The subsequent planning of Soviet period was aimed at developing Zlatoust as a key industrial center of Urals by placing 5 or 6 large plants into the city. That would transform Zlatoust into a large conglomerate of settlements scattered across the mountain landscape along the small tributaries of Ai river, while the valley of Ai would be occupied by the industrial enterprises. But the tempo of industrial development was too low and by the end of 1930es the construction works in the city faded. The new city plan was aiming at creating new district at the metallurgical plant, which reflected this plant’s leading role in the urban development of the period, but this plan was not implemented due to the start of the war against Germany. When the massive evacuation from the western regions of USSR had started, the weakness of Zlatoust city infrastructure led to the communal and economic disaster of the fall of 1941, when the city was unable to provide housing and nutrition for the newcomers. By the end of 1940es, however, the construction was started anew to somehow manage the consequences of the disastrous growth of the city. The city government and personally city’s chief architect P.A. Sibrin tried to halt the fragmentation driven by the efforts of industrial developers and to promote the new city center in the valley of river Ai, along the Karl Marx street. In doing so, they managed to construct an architectural ensemble serving as a symbol of new Zlatoust. However, due to the specificity of landscape and economic structure of Zlatoust the pre-war tendency of fragmentation of urban space prevailed: the growing Zlatoust plants devoured most of the territory in the valley of Ai. The same tendencies were influencing the formation of urban space in different locations with difficult landscape (for instance, in Kuzbass coal-mining region or in Kirovsk in Kola peninsula), but the particular way of making up the urban space was determined by the features of local industries.

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