By Igor Lukin

Most people know Ulyanovsk only as the birthplace of the leader of the Russian Revolution Vladimir Lenin, but this city, once called Simbirsk, was founded in 1648 as a base station on the Simbirsk-Karsun frontier defense line.

Today, Ulyanovsk is a region with tremendous economic growth potential. The products produced by area companies are well-known and recognized world-wide. The AN-124 Ruslan Cargo aircraft and the UAZ sport utility vehicle have long become the symbols of Russian reliability and quality.

The region’s advantageous geographical position and well-developed transport infrastructure allow for the movement of freight in any direction by any mode of transportation.

The region is rich in natural resources, such as oil, quartz, cement raw materials, diatomite, and unique mineral water.

The region’s government and the governor personally exert every effort to ensure maximum comfort and ease, as well as successful business opportunities for foreign companies that will come to the region.

Economy

Ulyanovsk region is part of the Volga River subdistrict of the Volga economic region. A well-developed transportation system and a favorable economic situation have an impact on regional economic development. The region is noted for production of aircrafts, cars, machine tools, automatic circuit reclosers, press-forging machines, electric crane motors, water sprinklers, and other machines. Other developed sectors include flour-milling, meat, butter-making, starch and molasses, distilling, building material, and woodworking industries.

Small businesses involved in processing semifinished products and secondary raw materials from large industrial enterprises play an important role in supplying goods to the market. More than 1 000 small private companies form the basis of the region’s small industry sector.

The oil industry is expanding at full speed. Increasing oil production and the construction of oil-refining facilities employing environmentally-clean technologies are the industry’s priority lines of development.

The NAFTA-Ulyanovsk joint venture is carrying out two important investment projects, namely the “Development of eight oil fields in Ulyanovsk region” and the “Construction of the Ulyanovsk Oil Refinery (Ulyanovsky NPZ)” with an annual output of 500 000 tons of fuel.

The region has a developed financial system consisting of banks and other financial institutions. Leading rating agencies rank Ulyanovsk region among the 20 Russian regions with the most favorable investment conditions.

The city of Ulyanovsk is the region’s main industrial center, where large engineering plants and the light industries producing fabrics, knitted goods, and shoes are located. The second-largest industrial center is Melekes, which has a flax mill, a mechanical plant, a knitting mill, wood-finishing plants, and flour mills.

Resources

Ulyanovsk region has an abundance of land, water, forest, and mineral resources. Sixty percent of the region’s 3.7 million hectares of available land are designated as agricultural lands. About 80% of this land is tilled. The predominant soil is black earth (chernozems), which is well-suited for growing grain, feed, and industrial crops. Therefore, both crop cultivation and livestock farming (oriented towards meat and milk production) are well-developed here.

Forests cover 28% (946 200 hectares) of Ulyanovsk region. Deciduous forests, both hardwood and softwood, predominate (117 500 and 393 900 hectares, respectively); coniferous forests cover another 343 000 hectares. The main deciduous species is oak, which covers 16% of the forested area. Most of the forests are noncommercial. Companies in the forest, woodworking, and paper industries operate on both local and imported raw materials.

Ulyanovsk region extends on both sides of the great Volga River. There is no shortage of water resources. However, even though 22 subsurface freshwater reservoirs with probable reserves of 608 500 cubic meters per day have been explored, some districts are experiencing a shortage of drinking water. Therefore, construction of group water intakes is planned for the northern part of the region and the area along the Volga. The best known mineral water sources are the Undory, the Beloe Lake (Beloe Ozero), the Bely Yar, and the Banket. The Undory and the Banket pools are the most promising.

The region’s beautiful historic sites, mineral waters, and natural beaches offer good prospects for the development of tourism and health resorts. The development of water resources, along with tourism and recreation, are envisioned in the region’s Socioeconomic Development Strategy, which has the support of the regional administration.

Eighty-two oil fields have been discovered in Ulyanovsk region, 24 of which are in operation. Experts have estimated total oil reserves at more than 35 million tons. Oil production is increasing year by year.

Ulyanovsk region also has substantial reserves of other raw materials used in industry, such as various kinds of sands, cement materials, clays, and peat. One of the largest quartz sand deposits in the C.I.S., the Tashlinskoe deposit, is located in the region. High-quality glassmaking sand from the deposit is delivered to glass factories in various Russian regions. The Pukyanovskoe deposit is a well-known source of foundry sand. Raw cement materials are produced at the Kremenskoe deposit. The region is fully supplied with cement– and glassmaking materials, heat insulation products, filtered powder, chalk, construction lime, reinforced concrete products, lime-sand brick, and natural sorbents, and even supplies other regions with these resources. Ulyanovsk region has enough mineral resources to meet regional demands, and in the case of certain minerals, federal demands; however, marketing research is necessary in order to develop effective import-export relations in the region.