centuries was determined by the scope of the bread trade and flour milling business. The Samara Brewery came into being in the 1880s, as well as the Kenitser Macaroni Factory, an ironworks, a confectionery factory, and a factory producing matches. The town acquired a number of magnificent private residences and administrative buildings. The Trading Houses of the Subbotins, Kurlins, Shikhobalovs, and Smirnovs�founders of the flour milling industry, who contributed a lot to the development of the city�were widely known not only across Russia, but also internationally wherever Samara's wheat was exported. In its rapid growth Samara resembled many young North American cities, and contemporaries coined the names "Russian New Orleans" and "Russian Chicago" for the city.
By the start of the 20th century, the population exceeded 100,000, and the city was the major trading and industrial center of the Volga region. During the October Revolution of 1917, Samara was seized by the Bolsheviks. However, on June 8, 1918, with the armed support of the Czechoslovak Legions, the city was taken by the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, or Komuch, who organized a "democratic counter-revolution", which at its height encompassed twelve million people. They fought under the Red flag against the Bolsheviks. On October 7, 1918, Samara fell to the Fourth Army of the Red Army.
Soviet period
1921 was a year of severe hunger in Samara. To provide support to the people, Fridtjof Nansen (the famous polar explorer), Martin Andersen Nex� (a Danish writer), the Swedish Red Cross Mission, and officers of the American Relief Administration from the United States came to Samara. In 1935, Samara was renamed Kuybyshev in honor of the Bolshevik leader Valerian Kuybyshev.
During World War II, Kuybyshev was chosen to be the capital of the Soviet Union should Moscow fall to the invading Germans. In October 1941, the Communist Party and governmental
