THE SAMARA-ZLATOUST RAILWAY.
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es. There is a local hospital with 250 beds, with a lying-in room, and a bacteriological station, a lunatic asylum within 10 versts of the town, and a railway hospital.
A bronze monument to the Emperor Alexander II, after the design of the Academician Sherwood, stands in the Alexis square; the pedestal is of Finnish granite. Symbolic figures stand at the feet of the Tsar-Liberator, representing the four most important events of his reign: the liberation of the serfs, the subjugation of the Caucasus, the liberation of the Slavonic tribes, and the conquest of Central Asia.
Banks: branches of the State Bank, of the Nobles' Land Bank, of the Peasants' Land Bank, and' of the Volga-Kama Commercial Bank, and the Samara Town Bank. Private credit institutions of Samara and its environs: the Samara Mutual Credit Co., the Samara District Branch Board of the Mutual Land Credit Co. and the Volga Bankers and Commissioners Associations Office; the banks of Serbulov, Nikonov, Kalachov and the village banks in the Samara, Nikolaev, and Novouzensk districts.
Periodicals: 1) non-official: Samara Gazette (daily), Samara Messenger, Samara  Advertiser.  2)  Official:  Government  Gazette, Diocesan Gazette.
The Alexander Public Library, the reading room of the Emperor Alexander II and the Samara Museum are open every day (on working days from 9 to 1 and from 4 to 9 in the evening, on holidays from 9 to 12). A society for the encouragement of education exists in Samara since 1873. The Society of Doctors and that of Musical and Dramatic Amateurs date from 1882.
Hotels: European, Central, Theatrical. Clubs: Nobles' Assembly, Merchants' Assembly.
There is a kumys sanatorium near the town.
The history of the town is marked by the following events:
1)  The visit of the Emperor Alexander the Blessed on the 8—9 September in 1824. He arrived on a steamer by the Volga, attended by a brilliant suite, on His way to Orenburg.
2)  The solemn opening of the first government zemstvo meeting by N. P. Mansurov, governor of Samara, on the 28 February 1865.
3)  The arrival of the Tsar Liberator, the Emperor Alexander Nikolaevich with the Grand Duke Tsesarevich, the future Tsar Pacificator and the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich on the 29 August 1871.
The construction of a railway to Orenburg and Zlatoust transformed Samara into one of the most important grain, cattle and tallow markets of the Empire. The opening of the traffic on the great Siberian Railway still further increased the importance of this town, which became a centre for freights coming from the Far East and Central Asia. The market of Samara attracts a great quantity of grain, which is brought by rail, by water along the Volga and Samara, and by road from the adjacent villages of the Samara, Buguruslan, Nikolaevsk and Novouzensk districts. The total yearly dealings in grain in Samara amount to about 18,000,000 puds, including about 12,000,000 puds of wheat. There are private granaries in the town containing about 12,000,000 puds, and others, situated on the Samara river, near the branch line, containing about 7,000.000 puds. Upon the opening of navigation, the grain accumulated in Samara is loaded on barges and forwarded to the towns of Kazan, Nizhni-Novgorod, Rybinsk and other commercial centres. Thus Samara is a grain depot, but is not a centre for its conveyance by rail.
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