(Source: http://megapredmet.ru/1-74378.html)

Artyom. There are no ancient monuments in the city, but there is a Palace of Culture which is compared with the Concert Hall named after Tchaikovsky. Artyom was founded in 1924 as a miner’s settlement. Its history started with the discovery of deposits of brown coal in Southern Primorye and the construction of the Zybunny mine.

The status of a city was given to Artyom in 1938. This is the fourth largest city (after Vladivostok, Nakhodka and Ussuriysk) of Primorsky Krai. The name was given to Artyom after the pseudonym of the Soviet party and state leader F.A. Sergeyev (1883-1921).

The son of the revolutionary Artyom was the adopted son of Stalin. He was one of the pioneers of local coal mines. In the early 1990s many coal mines closed. Now the city has operating construction enterprises, metal works, a tire repair factory, piano factories, carpet-producing, knitting, and furniture-producing industries, food industry enterprises.

Artyom SDPP is located nearby; it supplies electricity to the Southern Primorye. The products of the Artyom Porcelain Factory are famous in the whole region, and the tea set “Golden Leaves” produced by the factory was even demonstrated at the World Exhibition in Montreal. Sometimes Artyom is called the second literary capital of Primorye: because of the interesting writers and poets who live there.

A small town in Primorye named in honor of the famous explorer of the Far East. It is famous for its ski trail considered to be one of the best in the region.

The town of Arsenyev was founded in 1902 as the village of Semenovka. The village, in turn, has its own history. In 1895, after a severe flood, 7 families from the settlement of Petropavlovka moved to the Khalaza River (now called Dachnaya River).

A little later the family of Semen Guriev settled near the settlement, his farm was called Semenovo. Upstream of Khalaza there was a town with the same name. In 1902 all three villages were united and named Semenovka.

In 1938 Semenovka was transformed into a working village. Later, in 1952 the settlement received the status of a town of regional subordination and a new name - Arsenyev, in honor of the famous explorer of the Far East, traveler and writer Vladimir Klavdievich Arsenyev (1872-1930).

Local lore specialists and historians have for a long time tried to figure it out whether V.K. Arsenyev visited Semenovka. And they found it out that he did, even twice, in 1902 and in 1912. The traveler stayed there to have rest and studied the locality. The symbol of the town is the Obzornaya bald mountain, one of the highest peaks of Primorsky Krai (878 meters above sea level). It has a good ski trail (considered to be one of the best trails in Primorye).

Dalnerechensk is the oldest and northernmost town of Primorye, the administrative centre of Dalnerechensky district, located near the border with China.

Cossacks founded the village of Grafskaya on this place in 1859, and in 1917 the settlement received the status of a town: it had been called Iman until 1972. The town near Amur was not poor, it traded in timber and seafood, developed industry. During Soviet rule, a wood processing plant with a furniture factory and a meat processing plant were built there. Dalnerechensk is a border town, it participated in the Soviet-Chinese armed conflict on the Damansky Island.

Several monuments to the soldiers who died defending the state border have been erected in the town: the Memorial Complex to the Heroes-border Guards who were killed on March 2, 1969 on the Damansky Island, the Memorial of Glory, etc. Three rivers: Ussuri, Bolshaya Ussurka and Malinovka merge just within the town limits. The spurs of Sikhote-Alin can be seen on the horizon. Dalnerechensk failed to avoid the crisis of the 1990s: the wood processing plant disintegrated. Nevertheless, the town is still clean and tidy, its residents live a steady, quiet life.

Partizansk is located 40 km to the north of the port of Nakhodka and approximately 170 away from Vladivostok km (judging by a speedometer).

It is a typical Far Eastern city, extremely poor even by the standards of the Far East. This was not always this way: in the past Partizansk (its name had been Suchan until 1972) flourished.

Several coal mines worked within the city limits, the main enterprise of the city was an ore mining and processing plant. The city itself began with coal. In the early 1990s coal mining in the vicinity of Partizansk began to fade away. The equipment from the mines was sold for scrap metal. The last mine was closed in 2006, and Partizansk became (and even the local administration admits it) “a depressed territory devoid of city-forming enterprises”.

However, poverty does not seem oppressive and hopeless here. The city is quite clean, full of trees:  Partizansk looks rather like a park in some places. Mountains are located quite near: Livadiysky ridge in the west, Makarovsky ridge in the east. Lozovy ridge, full of caves, is located ten kilometers to the south-southwest; there is an ancient Jurchen settlement dated by the thirteenth-century on the western slope of this ridge.

Spassk-Dalniy is a small town in Primorsky Krai, located on the Kuleshovka River. Trans-Siberian Railway passes through it and divides the town into the western and eastern parts.

In 1917 the village of Spasskoye and the Evgenyevskaya railway station were united under the name of Spassk-Primorsky, and in 1929 the town got its present name. The town’s residents keep a memory of the assault of the year 1922: it was one of the last major battles of the Civil War.

Spassk-Dalniy is famous for its construction enterprises: a cement plant, a factory making asbestos-cement products, a plant manufacturing plumbing fixtures and a plant producing reinforced concrete frames. Meat and dairy production, as well as production of canned vegetables are developed here. Local climate is quite favorable for agriculture, local residents even grow watermelons. There is Khanka Nature Reserve on the territory of the district. The following medicinal plants grow here: eleutherococcus, spikenard (aralia), magnolia-vine, briar and ginseng.

The easternmost and highest mountain town of Primorsky Territory. The rocks located in the vicinity of Dalnegorsk were once depicted on a bill of 1000 roubles. Dalnegorsk was founded in 1897 as a settlement of Tetyukhe (translated as “wild boar valley” from Chinese).

This settlement was named this way after its location on the Tetyuke River (now called Rudnaya River). The history of the town began with an expedition led by the mining engineer S.V. Maslennikov who discovered a deposit of lead-zinc ores on the spurs of the Sikhote-Alin in 1897.

The expedition was sent by Yu.I. Brinner, a famous Far-Eastern merchant, a mining industrialist and a public figure. By the way, it was his grandson named Yul Brinner who became one of the most famous Hollywood actors. A mining company was soon created on the basis of the deposit, so that to start its development. Over time ore production grew, and production methods were improved.

Before the Second World War the Sikhote-Alinsky Polymetallic Industrial Plant was a complicated enterprise with a complete cycle of tin production.

In 1930 the settlement of Tetyukhe became an urban-type settlement. In 1965 the Primorsky Mining and Chemical Industrial Plant was opened there, later it was renamed as “Bor” Production Association. Even now it is one of the town-forming enterprises.

In 1972 the settlement was renamed as Dalnegorsk, and in 1989 it received the status of a town.

Bolshoy Kamen (“Big Stone” translated from Russian) is a closed town between Vladivostok and Nakhodka; the only plant in the Far East specializing in repair, re-equipment and modernization of nuclear submarine missile carriers is located there.

It is not easy to get here, like to any Closed Administrative-Territorial Unit: you need to order a pass in the Border Administration. The town and the nearby villages of Tsarevka and Moleny Mys are the starting points for climbing the peaks of the Livadiysky Ridge.

It’s easier to conquer the ridge from here, from the north-east, than from the south, from Nakhodka: the distance from Moleny Mys along the Galanta River to the foothills of Lysy Ded (“Bald Grandfather”) and Pidan makes up less than ten kilometers. It should be said that Bolshoy Kamen may be more attractive for tourists than Nakhodka, not only because of its location. The atmosphere of this closed town is incomparably better than that of Nakhodka, the streets are surprisingly clean, and the staff of local cafes and shops is very polite.

To tell the truth, the landscape of Bolshoy Kamen is much less picturesque than that of Nakhodka with its high bald mountains.