Founded as a Cossack outpost on the Tom River it was initially called Kuznetsk. It was here that Dostoevsky married his first wife, Maria Isaeva (1857). Joseph Stalin's rapid industrialization of the USSR transformed the sleepy town into a major coal mining and industrial center in the 1930s. In 1931-1932 the city was known as Novokuznetsk and in 1932-1961 as Stalinsk, after Stalin.
The Kuznetsk Basin (often abbreviated as Kuzbas, Russian: Кузнецкий бассейн, Кузбасс) in southwestern Siberia, Russia, is one of the biggest coal mining areas in the world, covering an area of around 27,000 square miles (69,900 km³).
It lies in the Kuznetsk Depression between Tomsk and Novokuznetsk in the basin of the Tom river.
From the south it borders the Abakan Range, from the west Salair Ridge, and Kuznetsky Alatau from the north.
Kuznetsk Basin, coal basin, c.10,000 sq mi (25,900 sq km), W Siberian Russia, between the Kuznetsk Alatau and the Salair Ridge.
With major plants at Novokuznetsk, the Kuznetsk industrial region (c.27,000 sq mi/69,900 sq km) produces iron and steel, zinc, aluminum, heavy machinery, and chemicals.
Strikes by Kuznetsk and Donets Basin coal miners in 1989 and 1990 weakened the Gorbachev government and crippled the USSR's industries.
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