Selivanovo District
The Selivanovo district is located in the south-eastern part of the Vladimir region. The population of the district is 17, 734 people (2018). The Selivanovo district is the only one in the region where the preponderance of the rural population is observed. The administrative center is the urban-type settlement Krasnaya Gorbatka with a population of 7,981 people (2018). The district was formed on April 10, 1929 with the center in the settlement at the Selivanovo station as part of the Vladimir District of the Ivanovo Industrial Region. In 1943, the settlement of Selivanovo became part of the settlement of Krasnaya Gorbatka, which became the center of the district. Since August 14, 1944, the Selivanovo District has been part of the newly formed Vladimir Region. In May 2005, the district as a municipality was given the status of a municipal district.
In the Selivanovo district, a legend is circulated about how Ilya Muromets defeated the Nightingale the Robber, who robbed traveling merchants in these places and attacked people. The villain lived on a hump (hill) covered with oaks, on one side of which there was a red pine forest, and on the other – a river stretched, characterized by unusually clear water. One of the interpretations of the name of the district’s central settlement, Krasnaya Gorbatka, is associated with this legend.
Vast forests and an abundance of clean water determined the construction of a paper factory here in 1873, around which the settlement of Krasnaya Gorbatka was formed. Paper produced by the Gorbatka’s factory in 1882 received a Gold Medal at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. The factory worked until 1939.
In 1941 in the old factory buildings housed a mechanical plant evacuated here from the Leningrad Region. It produced the products necessary for the front: artillery, aviation, anti-aircraft and machine-gun sights, parts for hand grenades. Currently, it is Selivanovo Machine-Building Plant, the city-forming enterprise of Krasnaya Gorbatka. The plant produces parts of railway locomotives, tram and other motor cars, track equipment, being one of the main suppliers of Russian Railways.
The Selivanovo district is traditionally agricultural: potatoes, barley, wheat and rye are grown here. Local livestock farms are breeding cattle. Significant deposits of clay and quartz sand make the region strategically important for the construction and glass industries.
The areas of decorative and applied art and crafts, developing in the Selivanovo district, are wood carving, working with natural materials, embroidery, weaving, lacework, patchwork and others. The main organizations, supporting and promoting folk art, are the Selivanovo District Center of Culture and Leisure , rural houses of culture.