Kem (city)

city Kem Кемь ( Russian ) Kemi ( Karelian ) coat of arms Federal district Northwest Russia republic Karelia Rajon Kem mayor Igor Pigalkin First mention 14th Century City since 1785 surface 21  km² population 13,051 inhabitants (as of Oct. 14, 2010) Population density 621 inhabitants / km² Height of the center 10  m Time zone UTC + 3 Telephone code (+7) 81458 Post Code 186610-186615 License Plate 10 OKATO 86 212 501 Website http://kem.onego.ru/ Geographical location Coordinates 64 ° 57 '  N , 34 ° 36'  E Coordinates: 64 ° 57 '0 "  N , 34 ° 36' 0"  E

Location in the western part of Russia

Location in the Republic of Karelia

List of cities in Russia

Kem ( Russian Кемь , Finnish and Karelian Kemi ) is a city in the Republic of Karelia in northwestern Russia . It has 13,051 inhabitants (as of October 14, 2010) and is the administrative seat of the Rajons Kem .

Geographical location

Kem is located in northern Karelia near the mouth of the river of the same name in the White Sea . The distance to the republic capital Petrozavodsk is 434 km to the south; the nearest town is Belomorsk 48 km south on the White Sea coast.

history

First mentions of the place suggest that it must have existed as early as the 14th century. This makes Kem one of the oldest preserved cities in northern Russia. The origin of the place name is suspected in the Finno-Ugric languages , where there are already similar geographical names (especially those of the city of Kemi and the Kemijoki river ).

Kem in 1911 on a photo by Sergei Prokudin-Gorski

Kems was first mentioned in a Russian document from 1450, when it was given to the Solovetsky monastery as a fief by the Novgorod noblewoman Marfa Borezkaja . Later the place served as a fortress against attacks from the Swedes . In 1598 a wooden Ostrog fortress was built on a nearby island , which was rebuilt around 60 years later and had to withstand attacks several times in the 16th and 17th centuries. In times of peace, fishing and hunting were the main sources of income for the local population until the 19th century.

During the reign of Catherine the Great , the place came into state ownership in the course of the expropriation of all Russian monasteries and was declared a district town in 1785. The granting of city rights was proclaimed personally by the then governor of the district center of Olonez and important poet Gawriil Derschawin .

In 1802 Kem was assigned to the Arkhangelsk governorate . In the course of the 19th century, shipbuilding and forestry developed there in addition to fishing.

During the Soviet period , Kem was subordinated to the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Republic and later the Autonomous Soviet Republic of Karelia . In the 1930s, the city was home to the administration of the GULAG criminal camp on the Solovetsky Islands . Later the hospital of the POW camp 212 , Segescha , existed here in 1755 for German POWs of the Second World War .

Population development

year	Residents
1897	2,447
1939	16,624
1959	18,127
1970	21,025
1979	20,962
1989	18,522
2002	14,620
2010	13.051

Note: census data

economy

The main industry in Kems today is forestry and wood processing. With the so-called "Kemer Cascade" of several hydropower plants on the Kem River, the city is also an important regional center for energy generation. Russia's first offshore wind farm has been under construction in the White Sea near Kem since 2017.

traffic

The train station of Kem is located on the Murmansk railway from Saint Petersburg to Murmansk . Here branches off a 12 km long branch line to the harbor Kem-Pristan (Кемь-Пристань) from the White Sea.

The R21 trunk road from Saint Petersburg to Murmansk also runs through Kem.

Attractions

The sights of Kems include primarily historical buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, including the wooden church built between 1711 and 1717 and the Annunciation Cathedral from 1904. There is a local history museum in the town, which is housed in the former treasurer's house.

Personalities

• Sergei Solowjow (* 1944), director, film producer and screenwriter
• Sergei Pyschyanow (* 1960), marksman and Olympic silver medalist in 1992

Web links

Commons : Kem  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• City website (Russian)
• Kem . mojgorod.ru (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Itogi Vserossijskoj perepisi naselenija 2010 goda. Tom 1. Čislennostʹ i razmeščenie naselenija (Results of the All-Russian Census 2010. Volume 1. Number and distribution of the population). Tables 5 , pp. 12-209; 11 , pp. 312–979 (download from the website of the Federal Service for State Statistics of the Russian Federation)
2. ↑ Erich Maschke (ed.): On the history of the German prisoners of war of the Second World War. Verlag Ernst and Werner Gieseking, Bielefeld 1962–1977.
3. ↑ Н. П. Лагутина, Т. Ю. Набокова, Т. П. Филатова: Атлас Железные Дороги. Omsk 2010, p. 6.
4. ↑ Sergey Pyzhyanov in the database of Sports-Reference (English)