Although the name sounds like the Russian word for "brother", it actually comes from 'bratskiye lyudi', an old name for the Buryats''.
History
The first Europeans in the area arrived in 1623, intending to collect taxes from the local Buryat population. Permanent settlement began with the construction of an ostrog in 1631 at the junction of the Oka and Angara rivers. Several wooden towers from the 17th-century fort are now exhibited in Kolomenskoye Estate of Moscow. During World War II, there was an increase in industrial activity in Siberia, as Soviet industry was moved to the lands east of the Ural Mountains. After the war's end, development slowed as resources were required in the rebuilding of European Russia. In 1947, the Gulag Angara prison labor camp was constructed near Bratsk, with capacity for up to 44,000 prisoners for projects such as the construction of the railway from Tayshet to Ust-Kut via Bratsk. The city's rapid development commenced with the announcement in 1952 that a dam and hydroelectric plant would be built at Bratsk on the Angara River. Town status was granted to Bratsk in 1955. The 4,500-megawatt Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station was built between 1954 and 1966, bringing numerous workers to the town. Other industries in the city include an aluminum smelter and a pulp mill.
Geography
Climate
Bratsk has a subarctic climate. Winters are very cold and long with average temperatures from to in January, while summers are mild to warm with average temperatures from to in July. Precipitation is moderate and is significantly higher in summer than at other times of the year.
For administrative purposes, the city is divided into three districts :
Padunsky, 56,205 inhabitants;
Pravoberezhny, 38,550 inhabitants;
Tsentralny, 151,564 inhabitants.
Residential districts of the city, some of which are separated by open country, include: Bikey, Chekanovsky, Energetik, Gidrostroitel, Osinovka, Padun, Porozhsky, Sosnovy, Stenikha, Sukhoy, Tsentralny, and Yuzhny Padun.
Pollution
Bratsk was among the Blacksmith Institute's "Dirty Thirty", the thirty most polluted places in the world. Until recently, the Bratsk Reservoir—one of the world's largest—was a source of drinking water for many nearby cities. In 1998, after tons of mercury were found at the bottom of the reservoir, warnings were posted urging local citizens to avoid the reservoir at all costs. However, owing to Russia's economic troubles, the reservoir still remains a source of fish and other food products for many hard-pressed local residents. According to Yuri Udodov, head of the Federal Committee on Ecology in Irkutsk Oblast, this region has "the highest rate of discharge of metallic mercury into the environment all of Siberia." The extent of mercury pollution in the ground around the nearby Usolye chemical plant is equal to half the total global production of mercury in 1992. Bratsk has been declared an ecological disaster zone. The Bratsk Aluminum Plant has been polluting its surroundings to such great degree that Chikanovsky was evacuated in 2001 due to repeated health emergencies.
Politics
On November 2013 the city council amended the charter to institute direct mayoral elections which were abolished in 2011.
