Salekhard

Salekhard (səlyĭkhärt`), city (1989 pop. 32,300), capital of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area, NW Siberian Russia, on the lower Ob River. It is a river port and has fish canneries, lumber mills, and shipyards. The population is mainly Russian. Founded as Obdorsk in 1595, the city was renamed in 1930. It is also spelled Salegard.

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Salekhard 

(until 1933, Obdorsk), a city under okrug jurisdiction and administrative center of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Tiumen’ Oblast, RSFSR.

Salekhard is a river port on the right bank of the Ob’, at the point where the Polui River empties into it, near the Arctic Circle. The Labytnangi railroad station on the line to Kotlas is on the opposite bank of the Ob’; it is connected with Salekhard by a ferry in summer and by buses in winter.

Salekhard was founded in 1595 as a fort. The former name, Obdorsk, was derived from the name of the Ob’ River and the Komi word dor, “a nearby place”; the Nentsy, however, always called the city Salekhard (“settlement on a cape”). In the 18th to early 20th centuries Salekhard was part of Berezov District, Tobol’sk Province. Soviet power was established there in April 1918.

Industry in Salekhard includes a fish cannery, housing-construction combines, and a milk plant. Construction components are also produced, and the city is a lumber transshipment center. Salekhard’s cultural and educational institutions include a zooveterinary technicum, a medical school, a teachers college, a cultural-educational school, a museum of local lore, and a house of people’s arts.