05 May 2003, 23:05
Kalach-na-Donu
Rayon (sector) centre in Volgograd oblast (province), 85 km west of Volgograd. Located on the left bank of the Tsimlyansk reservoir, 9 km higher than the entrance into the V.I. Lenin Volga-Don Ship Canal. Terminal station of the railway (Don) branch (30 km) from the Volgograd - Likhaya line; on the Volgograd - Belaya Kalitva highway. Population (1992 est.) 23.5 thousand, (1959 est.) 16.7 thousand, (1979 est.) 22.9 thousand.
Arose in 1708 as a Cossack sloboda (settlement). Town since 1951. In the early 1990s, the city had a dockyard, a car repair service, a wire yarn plant, a metal structure works, a concrete product plant, a dairy factory, a fish-factory; a meat-processing plant. Puppet-show.
During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, there were heavy fights in the vicinities of Kalach-na-Donu in August, 1942, and by August 26, the city was seized by Nazi troops; it was liberated after slogging combats on November 23, 1942, when armies of the Southwest and Stalingrad fronts joined each other south-east of the city (in the vicinities of the settlement of Sovetsky), which completed encirclement of Nazi troops in the environs of Stalingrad. On this site, the monument to Junction of the Fronts (sculptor Y.V Vuchetich) was erected.
