The history of the town of Anzhero-Sudzhensk began in the 19th century. Shortly before the Trans-Siberian Railway was laid, coal was discovered on the site of the future Anzhero-Sudzhensk.
One of the town’s first enterprises was the Anzherskaya station. In the year construction was completed—1895—it was a small rail siding. From the time train service began, a settlement formed near the station.
The nearest station to Anzherskaya was Sudzhenka, and nine versts from it was the village of Sudzhenskoye, where 1,600 people lived.
In 1896, the driving of several large (for that time) mines began at the Sudzhenskoye deposit. Three years later, Lev Aleksandrovich Mikhelson—a young and successful lawyer—became the sole owner of the pit.
Over time, exhausted mines ceased operations and new ones appeared. The last mine put into operation before the October Revolution was listed as No. 11.
The Anzher coal mines, unlike the Sudzhen mines, were state-owned. Industrial mining began here in 1898 with 8.3 thousand tons. Before World War I, extraction was carried out at four mines, while preparatory work was underway at three more.
In 1915, the Anzher and Sudzhen mines together produced 92% of the total output of the region’s coal enterprises.
At the mines, workers labored in artels of 50–200 people, headed by an artel leader—a small contractor. The work was unimaginably hard. A miner worked 45–48 shifts a month, each lasting 8 hours.
In 1901, construction of the Central Power Station began.
The war of 1914 forced industry to operate under increased load.
In 1915, the million-ton mark was surpassed for the first time: 1,058.2 thousand tons of coal were brought to the surface.
News of the fall of the tsarist regime reached the Anzher lands on March 3, 1917. On that day, workers’ rallies took place both in Anzherka and in Sudzhenka. On May 11, 1918, V. I. Lenin signed the decree “On the Nationalization of the Sudzhen Mines.”