Magnitogorsk (Russian: Магнитого́рск muhg-nee-tah-GOHRSK) is an industrial city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, on the eastern side of the southern extent of the Ural Mountains by the Ural River. The official motto of the city is "the place where Europe and Asia meet", as the city occupies land in both Europe and Asia Its population 2021 was 411,000.

Understand

The "Magnetite mountain" that lends the place its name was once its chief feature, a mountain almost entirely composed of iron ore. It was heavily mined, and the iron locally smelted, throughout the 1930s, during the days of Stalin's Five-Year-Plans. The mountain's mines have been mostly exhausted, but the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works remains the largest iron and steel works in the country processing ores from other parts of Russia and other former Soviet republics. The years of smelting have taken an ecological toll on the city.

Becaus of its strategic importance, the city was closed to foreigners from 1937 to 1989.

Urban planning

According to the original plans, the city was to have followed the linear city design, with rows of similar superblock neighborhoods running parallel to the factory, with a strip of greenery, or greenbelt, separating them. Planners would align living and production spheres so as to minimize necessary travel time: workers would generally live in a sector of the residential band closest to the sector of the industrial band in which they worked. However, construction of the city had begun before the plan was completed, so it had to be modified to accommodate existing structures.

Local information

• Magnitogorsk City Government website

Get in

By plane

• 1 Magnitogorsk International Airport (Международный аэропорт Магнитогорск, MQF  ^IATA) (19 km west of Magnitogorsk). There are flights from Moscow (Sheremetyevo), Saint Petersburg (Pulkovo), and Sochi (Adler). (updated Nov 2024)

By train

There is only one train from Moscow to Magnitogorsk, and only on odd days.

By car

You can reach Magnitogorsk by car by routes M7 or M5 through Ufa.

See

The Rear-front Memorial

• 1 The Rear-front Memorial (Памятник «Тыл — фронту»). A bronze and granite monument sculpted by Lev Golovnitsky and drawn by Yakov Belopolsky. It is considered the first part of a triptych, also consisting of The Motherland Calls in Volgograd and Warrior Liberator in Treptower Park, Berlin. This monument was unveiled in 1979. (updated Nov 2024)
• Magnitogorsk is home of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works.

• The Church of the Ascension of the Lord opened in 2004.

Do

• There are three theatres: Pushkin Drama Theatre (the oldest in the city), the Opera and Ballet House, and the Puppet Theatre.
• 1 Metallurg Magnitogorsk (Металлург Магнитогорск), Arena Metallurg. The "Steel Foxes" play in the Kharlamov Division of the Kontinental Hockey League. (updated Nov 2024)

Stay healthy

Be aware that Magnitogorsk is a heavily polluted town.