Ulan-Ude [key], city (1989 pop. 353,000), capital of the Buryat Republic, SE Siberian Russia, on the Selenga River near its confluence with the Uda. A major transportation hub, it is a river port, a junction on the Trans-Siberian RR, and the starting point of a railway to Ulaanbaatar and Beijing. Industries include railroad maintenance, ship repairing, sawmilling, food processing, meat canning, and the manufacture of locomotives. Founded in 1649 as a Cossack winter encampment, Ulan-Ude became a fortress in 1689 and a city in 1775. It developed as an important trade center of Transbaykalia, along the tea route to China. The city became the capital of the Far Eastern Republic in 1920 and of the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous SSR in 1923. Formerly called Udinsk and Verkhneudinsk, it was named Ulan-Ude in 1934.
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