Svobodny (until 1917 — Alekseevsk) is a town in Russia, the administrative center of Svobodnensky District of the Amur Region.

With the population of 71. 734 thousand people (as of 2011) it is the third most populated town in the Amur Region. The total of area of Svobodny is 225 sq.km.

The town stands on the right bank of River Zeya (inflow of Amur), 146 km away from Blagoveshchensk.

Today it has a railway station and a river port. Not far from the town there is the cosmodrome Svobodny-18 and the long-range aviation base Ukrainka. A car-repair factory runs in the town.

The major sight of Svobodny town is the world’s longest children's railway. The railroad 11.6 km long was opened back in 1940.

History of Svobodny

Until 1912 the territory of the future town was uninhabited and mostly covered with deciduous and coniferous woods.

Under the approved project all the planned residential quarters, squares, gardens, and parkways were provided with columns marking numbers of the quarters. All those interested could look at it and purchase a plot for settling down in the future city.

On July, 30th (on August, 12th) 1912 the new town was founded and named Alexeyevsk in honor of the successor to the throne Tsarevitch Alexey, the son of Tsar Nicholas II. In April 1917, after the October revolution, the municipal government renamed it from Alexeyevsk into Svobodny (meaning “free”) and the provisional government of Russia approved the name.

The town became notorious in the 1930s as the administrative centre of the Bamlag (a department of GULAG prison camps), where lots of people suffered and perished. In 1941 — 1945 the town was also a headquarters of the administration of Svobodlag (the town’s branch of GULAG prison camps).