(Source: https://yandex.ru/collections/card)

The exact date of foundation of Samara is unknown. According to a legend, on August 6, 1357, the Metropolitan Aleksii of Kiev and All Russia, the teacher and friend of St. Sergii of Radonezh, educator of the Grand Duke Dmitrii Donskoi, spent a night at the small monastery of the monk-hermit near the Samara tract. He was heading to the Golden Horde at the invitation of the Tatar Khan, in order to try to heal his wife Taidulla who suffered from some sort of eye disease. It was Aleksii who foretold that “a great city will be built here, where piety will reign, which will never be devastated”. Now St. Aleksii is considered the patron saint of Samara.

There is a legend about the way the Samara River got its name. The Volga was called “Ra” in ancient times. And the other river of the city flooded in spring and began to boast: “What is Ra now? I am just like Ra myself!”(these words sound precisely like “Samara” in Russian language).

Famous people

Lives and creative works of many famous people of Russia are connected with Samara.

The childhood and youth of the writer Aleksei Tolstoy passed in this city.

Maxim Gorky began his literary career in Samara, working in the editorial board of “Samara Newspaper”. There he published his famous “Fairy-tales of the Old Woman Izergil” and “Song of the Falcon”. The Ulyanov family had lived in the village of Alakayevka of Samara Oblast, and then in Samara, for a long time; Lenin started his activity there.

Such famous artists as Ilya Repin, Vasily Surikov, Ivan Aivazovsky, lived in the city. During the Great Patriotic War, the famous Seventh “Leningrad” Symphony by Dmitry Shostakovich who lived in Samara in evacuation was for the first time performed in the city. The first three parts of the symphony were written in Leningrad; Shostakovich completed the finale in evacuation. The seventh symphony was performed in the besieged Leningrad on August 9, 1942. The symphony was performed by the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra of the Leningrad Radio Committee; the major part of the musicians had died of starvation by that time. The musical score was taken to Leningrad by plane, and the missing musicians were sent to the capital from the front line. The symphony was simultaneously broadcast on the radio and through the loudspeakers of the city network. According to the recollections of many Germans, when they heard the performance of this symphony in the city that was already dying of hunger and was ready to surrender, as they believed, the enemies suddenly realized that they would not be able conquer Leningrad.