Nikolay Garin-Mikhailovsky

Nikolay Garin-Mikhailovskiy was a great person. He was an outstanding engineer. Moreover he was also a famous writer.

Nikolay Garin-Mikhailovsky

He made a lot of things for our country. Firstly Nikolay founded our favorite city Novosibirsk, which was earlier called Novonikolaevsk. Nikolay worked on the construction of a railway in Siberia. As a writer Garin is famous for his stories "Tema's childhood", "Students", "Engineers". In his autobiographical tetralogy he analysed his generation's life.

Nikolay Garin-Mikhailovskiy was born in 1852 in the family of a militaryman. The Emperor Nikolay 1 was his godfather. Nikolay finished grammar school in Odessa in 1871 and then studied at the Railway institute in Petersburg. He married and had 3 children. After graduating from the university he traveled a lot. His work involved railroads. He made research and worked in Bessarabia, Transcaucasia, Ural, Siberia, and the Far East, in the Middle Russia, Crimea and Korea. His best known engineering work is the building of an important stop for what would eventually be the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

Novosibirsk bridge

There is a local legend that rich Tomsk merchants wanted to give Garin a huge bribe to build the bridge nearer to Tomsk. But thanks to his honesty the bridge was built in the best place. Here was established a town called Novonikolaevsk, which turned into Novosibirsk with the population of over 1 million.

Novosibirsk Railway Station ()

Garin-Mihailovskiy is a very important person for our city because Novosibirsk is our home city and we consider Garin to be the founder of Novosibirsk. We love our city very much. I enjoy walking round the city. My favourite places are the Railroad Station and the square in front of it which is named after Garin-Mihailovskiy. I admire these places and always remember the person who started our city.