Social and natural resources

History and culture

First caveman settlements appeared in the area 11 thousand years ago. Archaeologists have found several hundred settlements dating back to the Stone, Iron, and Bronze Ages. The name of the Oblast stems from the word "kurgan" - a barrow or an artificial mound, a tomb of a nomadic warrior. In the Middle Ages these lands used to belong to the Golden Horde and the descendants of Genghis Khan. First Russian settlers appeared here only in XVI century. The St. Dalmat monastery is considered to be the first large settlement here. It became the centre for the missionary, trade, and defence activities of the Russians.

St. Dalmat monastery.

Russian peasants founded the Kurganskaya Sloboda (Kurgan Burg) in XVII century. By the middle of XVIII century this fortress had three fortification lines, about a thousand soldiers, and 28 cannons. The garrison of the fortress was by far the biggest for hundreds of miles around.
By the middle of XIX century the entire region had been populated. The local people began specialising in supplying grain and other food to the neighbouring industrially developed regions of the Urals. The Kurgan Oblast officially became a separate entity in 1943. The oblast has 3 professional theatres, 10 state-owned and 6 municipal museums, and the centres for Russian, Cossack, Bashkir, and Tatar cultures. There are 1453 protected sited of historical and cultural interest of nationwide and local significance in the Oblast.

Natural resources

The terrain of the Kurgan Oblast is flat. Very fertile soil is the principal natural wealth of the region.

Fossil and raw material resources of the region include:

• peat;
• beauty muds (peloids);
• low- and high-salt content mineral water;
• uranium ore (30% of the national reserves);
• clay, plaster, gravel, and other materials used in construction.

One fifth of the area - 1.77 million hectares - is covered by woodland. The estimated quantity of timber is 100 million cubic metres, conifers amount to about a half of this.

Steppe expanses and a great many lakes are the distinguishing features of the Kurgan Oblast countryside.

Population and labour resources

The total population of the Oblast is 960 thousand people. Most of the people - 56.6% - live in 9 cities and towns. Kurgan (334 thousand people) and Shadrinsk (81 thousand people) are the two biggest. The economically active population of the city is 442 thousand people.

Science

Matching the agrarian development of the Oblast, the agricultural science of Zauralye (lands beyond the Urals) is well-advanced. Here we have the Kurgan Science and Research Institute of Agriculture and the T. S. Maltsev Kurgan State Agricultural Academy. The Russian Ilizarov Scientific Center for Restorative Traumatology and Orthopaedics is world famous in the sphere of medicine.

High-tech medical care is provided to Russian and foreign patients in the Ilizarov Center.