Ukhta is a Russian town located in the southern part of Timan Ridge, in the valley of River Ukhta and its inflow Chibyyu (the basin of Pechora), 333 km to the northeast of Syktyvkar. It is a railway station.

The town with the overall area of 13261 sq km has the population of 121.7 thousand people.

It is the town with the second largest population after Syktyvkar in the Komi Republic.

History of Ukhta

Oil sources on River Ukhta near the modern town were known as far back as in the 17th century. In the mid 19th century the industrialist M.K. Sidorov drilled one of Russia's first oil wells near Ukhta. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries private firms and an expedition of the Mining Department of the State Property Ministry were engaged in oil searches in pool of the Ukhta River. In 1920-21 oil field industry existed as a cottage craft there.

In 1929 a prospecting expedition founded the Chibyya Settlement at the confluence of River Chibyyu into River Ukhta. In 1938 it became an industrial community. In 1939 the settlement was renamed into Ukhta. It became Ukhta town in 1943.

The river name Ukhta has an ancient Finno-Ugric origin; wide dissemination of the names Ukhta and its version Okhta in the names of rivers of the North of the European part of Russia testifies to it. Apparently, there existed the term “Ukhta meaning “a river, a channel.

Till 1953 Ukhta was mostly constructed by prisoners of the GULAG system.

Culture

The state museum Earth Nature, Oil and Gas Museum with Y. Krems’ office, the Ukhta Local History Museum, and Ukhto-Pechorsky Memorial.