The present article is aimed to identify origins and evolution of environmental problems characteristic for Middle Volga Region in the second half of the XXth century. The approach applied for the research allows to analyze the industrial growth of the country from a totally new level, to observe the course, character and peculiarities of its impact on the ecological degradation that determines the critical condition of environment at the present stage. The article reveals the results of historical and ecological analysis conducted by Russian and foreign researchers on issues of a human and environment interaction; they make it possible to designate for Russia such perspective scientific guidelines of studying contradictions in the system “human nature” as: origins and evolution of industrial pollution, ecological problems of urbanized territories, dynamics of natural resources exhaustion, water utilization history. The materials of this article may facilitate the efficient usage of economic, technological, moral and organizational methods aimed to impact the developing economic system, its highest ecologization.