First Samara is mentioned in russian annals of 1361. The settlement — hithe Samara was marked on the map of Volga of 1367 by venetian merchants Franchesco and Domenico Picigano.
An official date of birth is 1586 when by tsar Fedor Ivanovich's order began the construction of fortress for protection from invasion of nomads on Volga river named Samara town. The fortress has began on the place of present Bread Square, on the hill. First there were erecting the walls of sharp logs — watchtowers, the protection from arrows. Then Kremlin, church, houses. In 1636 the length of town was 1.7 km., wide — 350 m. In 1688 the fortress Samara was renamed to town and became not only military outpost but the trade centre.
In 1708 under Peter I Samara was the tenth town of Kazan provence, and in 1719 attached to Astrakhan province. There were 210 courtyards in the territory of town at that time.
That period Samara was in epicentre of two peasant wars: with the help of local population Samara was captured by the troops of Stepan Razin and in 1773 Samara was the first town that took Emel'yan Pugachev's part.
In 1851 Samara became the town with 15 000 population. At that moment Samara province was on the 1st place by the quantity of wheat in Russian Empery. An active trade of colonial, manufacture and other goods was realized in 375 shops. Each week there were markets on two squares. During the year three big fayres has taken place there: Sobornaya (autumn), Vozdvizhenskaya and Kazanskaya (summer) lasting 10 days. To the end of the 19th century there were 46 factories in Samara, where 2,5 thousand of workers worked there. In 1900 the first electrostation was built. To 1917 there functionned 90 industrial manufactures, mechanical bakery in Samara. As the town had a gainful geographical location Donbass and Ural were the main deliveries of metal that answered for building a number of large manufactures of machine — building and metalworking.
The October revolution of 1917 was without any shoot. But in 1918 Soviet authority was deposed by town rebels and Czechoslovak corps of the prisoner of Austro-Hungarian army. In October 1918 Soviet authority was reclaimed by the Red Army under V. Chapaev and G. Gay.
In 1935 Samara was renamed to Kuybyshev after the Soviet politician Valerian Kuybyshev. The special politic importance it got in 1941 when there were evacuated government authorities headed by M.I. Kalinin, diplomatic corps, stock company of the Big Theatre and many famous workers of culture — D. Shostakovich, I. Erenburg, F. Gladkov. There was erected underground bin (Bunker) for I. Stalin. Today it is a museum. There were evacuated some factories as well. During the war thousands of attack-planes Il-2 got off from the airdrome.
During this period the city was nicknamed The Second Baku because of threat to Baku deposit.
Postwar years marked by rapid development of town. Samara became the largest industrial and cultural centre of Russia. High potentia of aircraft, machine-building, metal, electrotechnical, cabel, oil refining and light industries set up here.
Samara developped into the largest scientific centre of Russia. Function 10 Institutions of Higher Education and 4 Universities prepare the experts with encyclopedic knowledge.
During this time there were set up 4 professional theartres , among them two academic, theatre of drama after M. Gorkiy and theatre of opera and ballet. Symphony orchestra of Samara Pholarmonic and Volga folk chorus glorify the city in Russia and abroad.
Samara museums keep the most valuable collections and unique works of art.
