Novokuznetsk is a city in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia with a population of 549,870 (2002 Census). It is located c. 3,000 km east of Moscow. Founded as a Cossack outpost on the Tom River, it was initially called Kuznetsk . It was here that Fyodor Dostoevsky married his first wife, Maria Isayeva (1857). Joseph Stalin's rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union transformed the sleepy town into a major coal mining and industrial center in the 1930s. In 1931–1932 the city was known as Novokuznet… (More on Novokuznetsk)