Barnaul was founded by the industrialist Akinfy Demidov in the first half of the 18th century on the River Ob to serve as a base for extracting mineral deposits from the nearby Altai Mountains. The project was successful and for the rest of the century Barnaul became a centre for copper and silver production. Today the city remains an industrial hub for Siberia. Most tourists who visit Barnaul come en route to the Altai Mountains, but Barnaul in itself is a pretty Siberian city with many traditional wooden houses, complete with a Hollywood-type sign overlooking the city.