Soligorsk was built in the “backcountry.” At the end of the 1950s, on the banks of the Sluch River, 30 kilometers from the ancient city of Slutsk, construction began simultaneously on a potassium plant and residential areas. A railway was drawn to the construction site. Since 1960, sylvinite has been mined here—a raw material for the production of potassium fertilizers. Three years later, Soligorsk appeared on the list of cities.
Rich subsoil resources opened up great prospects for it. The city grew with microdistricts, each with more residents than any other old Belarusian town. A reservoir was created. It won’t be long before Soligorsk enters the list of large cities. It is called the capital of fertility, but it will not be a city of one industry; it will become multi-industry and multifunctional.
The emergence of new cities leads to a change in the predominant regional type in the area. In the past, for the Central Economic Region, perhaps the most common type was a small textile town that formed near a large enterprise. One of many representatives of this type is Drezna in Eastern Moscow Region, 11 kilometers west of Orekhovo-Zuyevo. In 1899, a large spinning and weaving factory was built by the railway station, on the bank of a small river (Drezna – a right tributary of the Klyazma), in the center of a cluster of villages whose residents had long been engaged in weaving. A few kilometers south, there was a huge peat bog.
Thus, the factory found prepared industrial workers, roads, water, and fuel here. On the flat Meshchera plain, the multi-story factory building with a tall chimney was especially noticeable. Nearby, similar red-brick and multi-story workers’ barracks were raised, and small two- or three-window cottages of settlements clung tightly to each other.
After the October Revolution, Drezna acquired a city-like appearance. Public buildings (a club, school, hospital), and residential houses were built. Changing its appearance and drawing in residents, Drezna remained a small (about 10,000 people) single-industry town.
Having become the country’s main base for the reconstruction of the national economy, an all-union scientific and technical laboratory, the Central Region changed its industrial structure. In the city-forming base of new cities, the leading role began to be played by machine building, energy, chemistry, and in recent decades, science combined with experimental production, design and construction work, and training of personnel. Cities that are science centers now fully express the national economic essence of the Central District and correspond to its place in the inter-district division of labor.
