In 1734, the
Russian Empire began to expand its dominance and influence in Asia by building a fortified city called Orenburg on its eastern border (Southern Urals). For this purpose, in 1735, Ivan Kirilov, a cartographer and statistician, began to develop the settlement at the confluence of the rivers
Or and
Ural, and the first settlement was chosen during his expedition. He claimed that the town was needed "to open a transit route to Bukhara, Badakhshan, Balkh and India" and that "riches in the form of gold, lapis lazuli and garnets could be obtained from it". After his death, a new manager of the Orenburg expedition,
Vasily Tatishchev, was appointed who did not consider the place suitable for building a city. Therefore, in 1739 he began preparations for the construction of a new town with the old name on Krasnaya Gora (Red Mountain), downstream of the Ural (Yaik) River. The old settlement was named the Orsk fortress (now the city of
Orsk). On August 6, 1741, the new town was laid out. However, its construction never started. The place on Krasnaya Gora was not suitable for the construction of the city, as it was treeless, rocky and far from the river. A new manager of the Orenburg expedition
Ivan Neplyuev was appointed, and on April 19, 1743, Orenburg was built up on the third attempt, at the place where the Berd settlement was earlier located, from the Krasnaya Gora. In the summer of 1742, Neplyuev was assigned to build the city on the site of the rivers
Yaik and
Sakmara. The new place, surrounded by forests and fields where the Yaik and Sakumara rivers converge, was chosen by Neplyuev himself. Today it is the historical center of the city. The town built on the Red Mountain was named Krasnogorsk. Thus, in 1743 Ivan Neplyuev founded Orenburg on thesite of present-day Orsk, about 250 kilometers west of the Urals. This third Orenburg served as an important military outpost on the border with the nomadic
Kazakhs. It became the center of the Orenburg Cossacks. In the first half of the 18th century, the
Russian Empire constructed the , a series of forty-six forts, including Orenburg, to prevent Kazakh and
Dzungar raids into Russian territory. Orenburg played a major role in
Pugachev's Rebellion (1773–1774), the largest peasant revolt in Russian history. At the time, it was the capital of a vast district and the seat of the governor. Yemelyan Pugachev besieged the city and its fortress from nearby
Berda from October 1773 to March 26, 1774. The defense was organized by Governor of Orenburg lieutenant-general
Reinsdorf. General
Golytsin defeated Pugachev at Berda, and later again at
Kargala (north of Orenburg). Most of the city was left in ruins, and thousands of inhabitants had died in the siege. Government forces crushed revolt towards the end of 1774 by General
Michelsohn at
Tsaritsyn. Further reprisals against rebel areas were carried out by General
Peter Panin.
Alexander Pushkin visited Orenburg in 1833 during a research trip for his books
The History of Pugachev and his famous novel ''
The Captain's Daughter''. He met his friend
Vladimir Dal here, who would later write the first serious dictionary of the Russian language. Orenburg was the base for General
Perovsky's expeditions against the
Khanate of Khiva in the 1830s through 1850s. After the incorporation of
Central Asia into the
Russian Empire, Orenburg became a trading station and, since the completion of the
Trans-Aral Railway, a prominent
railway junction en route to the
new Central Asian possessions and to
Siberia. Orenburg functioned as the capital of the
Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (in present-day
Kazakhstan) within Russia from 1920 to 1925. When that republic was renamed
Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic in 1925, Orenburg joined Russia and
Kyzylorda became the new capital.
Almaty became the capital in 1929 after the construction of the
Turkestan–Siberia Railway. Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was promoted to union republic status as the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic
Kazakh SSR in 1936. Orenburg remained in Russia. From 1938 to 1957, the city bore the name
Chkalov () (after the prominent test pilot
Valery Chkalov). The city's distance from the German invasion during
World War II led many Soviet enterprises to flee there, helping to spur the city's economic growth. == Administrative and municipal status ==