Night in Russian Chicago

Samara is the sixth largest city in Russia. It is situated in the southeastern part of European Russia on the bank of the Volga. Samara is often known as Russian Chicago. Both towns have similar climate, topography and branches of industry.

Though Samara's beaches are the city's biggest attraction. In the summer they are packed with locals and tourists swimming in the waters of the Volga.

At the north-eastern corner of Square of Glory stands the small but attractive Cathedral of St George. The church was built in 2001 in honor of the older and larger incarnation that was destroyed during the Communist era.

Space museum “Cosmic Samara” was founded in 2007. Today the museum collection is represented by 900 exhibits including unique ones. For example Sputnik, which made photographs of the earth from space, was crested at Samara's enterprises. History of Samara Space Complex consists of enterprises and collectives, which started to develop and manufacture rocket - space engineering during post-war period, and made the great contribution into development of cosmonautics and national defense.

Samara's streets possess many charming old wooden houses and large parks in the center.

Samara was a top secret city until 1990: after the World War II the defense industry developed rapidly there; new factories were built, leading to Kuybyshev (Samara) becoming a closed city. In 1960, it became the missile shield center for the country. The launch vehicle Vostok, which delivered the first manned spaceship to orbit, was built at the Samara Progress Plant.

From 1935 to 1990 Samara was named after the communist revolutionary Kyibushev who proclaimed the victory of the communist revolution in Samara in 1917.

Samara was founded in 1536 as a defensive port. It rapidly developed into a center for trade due to its central location in the Volga region. The principle trading was for grain, but as the industrial capacity of Russia and the rest of the world continued to develop, Samara became a center for the production of motor vehicles, chemicals, candies, and metals.

In 1941, sworn to complete secrecy, a team of more than 500 metro builders from Moscow were brought to Samara to construct a bunker, a shaft 8-meters in diameter and 37-meters deep, leading down to the entrance. If it were not so difficult to get into, this Bunker would certainly be Samara's most popular tourist attraction, although Stalin himself never used it.

During World War II, Stalin named Samara the provincial capital of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1943. Moscow was under siege by the Germans and at risk of being occupied. Evidence of Samara's significance during wartime resonates in the remains of Stalin's Bunker, now a museum.