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Please click on a thumbnail picture to get a full size picture. After viewing a full size picture, use your browser back button to return to the album. Permission is given for the pictures to be used for personal use and on personal web pages only. Please credit me and provide a link to this page. Thank you Ulyanovsk, formerly Simbirsk, is a city on the Volga River in Russia, 893 km east from Moscow. It is the administrative centre of Ulyanovsk Oblast, and the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin. Population: 635,947. In 1648, the boyar Bogdan Khitrovo founded a frontier fort of "Simbirsk" or "Sinbirsk" on top of the hill on the Western bank of the Volga River, designed to protect the eastern edge of the growing Russian Empire from the nomadic Nogais and to establish a foothold in the area. Just twenty years after founding, this fort managed to withstand a month-long siege by Stenka Razin's forces (some 20,000 in number). As the eastern border of Russia was rapidly pushed into Siberia, Simbirsk soon lost its strategic status and started to grow as a provincial town. It was promoted to city status in 1796. The Holy Trinity Cathedral was built in the restrained Neoclassical style in 1827–1841. The population of Simbirsk reached 26,000 by 1856; 43,000 by 1897. In 1924, the city was renamed Ulyanovsk in honour of its recently-deceased most famous son Vladimir Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, who was born there. Another Russian political leader Alexander Kerensky was also born in Simbirsk.
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