The post‑war thaw

In the post-war years, the Tyumen region remained a typical remote Siberian territory with underdeveloped industry and agriculture. It was known as a place of exile and as a supplier of timber, furs, and valuable varieties of fish. Demobilization was an important event for the Tyumen Region. When demobilized servicemen began returning in July 1945, the people of Tyumen finally became convinced that the long-awaited victory had been achieved. More than 44,000 former soldiers and officers helped to alleviate the severe shortage of labour. They replaced women, elderly people, and children who had been working under unbearable strain at factory machines and in the fields. They also helped to fill the shortage of managerial personnel, which was acutely felt in the newly established Tyumen Region.

The first post-war Five-Year Plan began during the transition to the production of civilian goods. During the war, mechanical engineering had become the leading sector of the region’s industry. Its conversion to peacetime production required changes in specialisation, technology, and work organisation. However, the necessary equipment for manufacturing civilian goods was in short supply. Factories and industrial plants suffered from a chronic lack of electricity, which frequently forced production to stop. As a result, in 1946, downtime at many enterprises accounted for as much as a quarter of the annual working-time budget, while overall production fell by 10 per cent.

The region’s industry began serial production of new types of civilian goods. Instead of machine housings, the Mechanik plant began manufacturing three-spindle centring machines, trimming machines, and railway wagon wheelsets. The Shipyard, instead of torpedo boats, began producing tugboats, lighters, and steel barges. The Stroymashin plant switched from mines to concrete mixers. At the same time, the number of enterprises that failed to meet their planned targets remained considerable: 86 out of 511 work collectives failed to fulfil their annual production programmes.

In the early 1950s, the USSR entered a new phase of development, shaped to a considerable extent by the end of Stalin’s dictatorship.

The growth of the urban population exacerbated food shortages in the 1950s. Increasing grain production was discussed at the February 1954 Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when the development of virgin and fallow lands began. As early as 5 March 1954, residents of Tyumen gathered to see off Komsomol volunteers from the shipbuilding plant as they departed for the newly cultivated lands.

The second half of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s were marked by a revival of public life and a political thaw following Stalin’s personal rule. The condemnation of Stalin’s cult of personality and a certain degree of democratisation in public and political life did not mean that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had abandoned Marxist-Leninist ideology as the state ideology. Society viewed the activities of party and government bodies with a degree of scepticism. This was reflected in protests and statements by industrial workers, collective farmers, and young people. In 1957, workers at the Tura timber depot refused to work.

In 1959−1960, four of the 15 churches operating in the region were closed, and the activities of 20 religious sects were banned. Religious ministers were also sometimes prosecuted. The Tyumen Region was home to Germans, Lithuanians, and members of other ethnic groups who had been deported during the Great Patriotic War.

Established in 1944, the Tyumen Region inherited the unresolved problem of childhood illiteracy. In April 1945, the head of the regional Department of Public Education reported that the law on compulsory universal education was not being enforced: 4,775 school-age children were not receiving an education. According to other official figures, as of 1 January 1950, 8,000 school-age children were not attending school. In reality, the figure was even higher.

In the late 1950s, seven-year compulsory education was introduced in the country, and in 1966 the transition to universal secondary education for young people began.

Music played a significant role in the cultural life of the region. In 1945, a concert and variety bureau opened in Tyumen in the former building of the Merchants' Club. It organised concerts and invited prominent musicians and performers to appear. Several concert groups worked under its auspices. In 1958, the concert and variety bureau was reorganised into the Tyumen Regional Philharmonic, which by then had moved into a new building.

In the 1970s, the Days of Soviet Music in the Tyumen Region became an annual tradition. In the 1980s, the All-Russian music festival Tyumen Meridian continued this tradition, followed later by Alyabyev’s Musical Autumn. With the active involvement of the Tyumen Philharmonic, the Siberian Violin Ensemble was established in 1978. It has since become known internationally.

The Tyumen Theatre developed a strong acting company. In 1941, Yevgeny Matveyev began his artistic career there. He later became a well-known film director, a People’s Artist of the USSR, and a recipient of the State Prize. In the 1950s, Pyotr S. Velyaminov, a People’s Artist of the RSFSR, performed at the theatre. Its director, K. Zelenevsky, also made a significant contribution to the theatre’s development during those years.

In 1956, a music college opened in Tyumen. In 1974, it was transformed into a college of arts.

The Tyumen branch of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR was one of the first creative associations to become formally established in the city. Founded in 1944, it brought together members of the former Omsk Regional Organisation of the Union of Artists. Initially, the branch consisted of eight members and was headed by A. P. Mitinsky. In October 1945, the Khudozhnik cooperative association was established in Tyumen. It operated a studio for young professional artists, where several artists who later became well known in Tyumen took their first steps in the arts: A. I. Murychev, M. S. Rogozhnev, E. K. Kobelev, and V. P. Khokhryakov, all of whom went on to receive the title of Honoured Artist of the RSFSR. Sculptors V. E. Semenova and V. S. Zaykov also developed their artistic skills there. In September 1946, an exhibition salon featuring works by Tyumen artists opened at the Regional House of Folk Art. From 1946 onwards, exhibitions by Tyumen artists became a regular event.

In 1957, the gallery’s collection consisted of 369 paintings. Its holdings subsequently grew through the transfer of paintings to Tyumen from the Leningrad Theatre Museum, the Russian Museum, the Hermitage, and other national collections. Exhibition activities were particularly active during this period.

In October 1955, a drilling rig adapted for transmitting television images was installed in the courtyard of the Tyumen post office. Residents of Tyumen began receiving television broadcasts from Sverdlovsk and Moscow. The first television sets went on sale, with screens no larger than a postcard.

Cinema gradually gave way to television. Regional television broadcasting began in late 1957. At that time, there were only ten television receivers in and the surrounding area. The first Tyumen television programmes were broadcast five days a week, with broadcasts lasting approximately three hours. Programmes usually included news bulletins, newspaper reviews, and film screenings. There was also a mandatory break of several minutes to allow the staff to prepare the next programme.