History of Inta
Inta is located 780 km from Syktyvkar and 12 km from the railway station with the same name - on the upper left bank of the Bolshaya (local name: "Idzhyd") Inta river and the right tributary of the Kosyu river. The town is named after the river.
Probably the river is called Bolshaya as compared with the Kosyu, which is called Torovey-Yaga in Nenets - "a dry shallow river". The population of Inta is 56,600, and is 65,200 when counting the residents of the territory under Inta's jurisdiction (including three workers' communities -Abez, Verkhnyaya Inta, Kozhim - and 21 agri-cultural communities). The territory (30,100 sq.km) under Inta jurisdiction borders on the Usinsk area in the west, the Nenets Auto-nomous Region in the north, the territory under Vorkuta jurisdiction in the northeast, the Khanty-Mansy Auto-nomous Region in the east and the Pechora area of the Komi Republic in the south and southwest.
The emergence of the town is connected with the development of the Pechora Coalfield. The geologist P.P. Matafin was the first to study the the outcroppings of Inta coal, in 1912. Several other expeditions conducted work here sometime later. The first mineshaft started operation in 1933. Three years later, a camp belonging to the Ukhtpechlag appeared on the bank of the Inta.Non-prisoners have been working at the Inta mines since 1957, and the town has become "civilian" in appearance. Nowadays, Inta is a multi-national town of miners who can work on weekdays, and rest on weekends and holidays. Inta's favorite holidays are Miners' Day and Inta Town Day.
Iskra. 01.01.1963
Before the discovery of coal, and the resulting arrival of construction camps and the railway, the territory of the region was inhabited only in the valleys of the Usa River and its tributaries. It was the Komi-lzhem who settled in these territories. Another ethnic group of Northern Komi - the Kolvin - appeared after the partial assimilation of the settled Nenets by the Izhem in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The Kolvin adopted most of the attributes of the Komi-lzhem culture and economy: in contrast to the Nenets, the Kolvin keep cows, sheep and other cattle, and have good vegetable gardens. The native language is the Izhem dialect of the Komi language. The Nenets language has gone into oblivion. The processes of assimilation with the Northern Komi are still continuing.
Resources:
Жеребцов И.Л. Где ты живешь : населенные пункты Республики Коми : историко-демографический справочник. - Сыктывкар, 1994. - С. 82 -83.
Территориальный Орган Федеральной Службы государственной статистики по Республике Коми. Демографический ежегодник Республики Коми : стат. сборник 2010. - Сыктывкар, 2010. - С.12.
Малофеевская, Л. А. Город на Большой Инте. - Сыктывкар : [б. и.], 2004. - С.55.