26 May 2003, 16:21
Volgodonsk
Town in Rostov oblast (province), oblast subordination, 190 km east of Rostov-on-Don. Located on the left bank of the Tsimlyansk Reservoir, on the Don River, near the lock of the Tsimlyansk Hydroelectric Station. Railway station (Volgodonsk) in the Morozovsk - Kuberle line. Port. Population (1992 est.) 182 thousand, (1959 est.) 16 thousand, (1970 est.) 28 thousand, (1979 est.) 92.4 thousand.
Founded in 1950 because of construction of the Volga-Don navigation canal and the Tsimlyansk Hydroelectric Station, near the stanitsa (Cossack village) of Romanovskaya and the farm of Solyony. Town since 1956. Modern Volgodonsk is an industrial centre of Rostov oblast. By the beginning of the 1990s, the town had enterprises of power- Machine industry (PО Atommash, the Energomash works), the Integrated Chemicals Mill is one of the largest in the south of Russia (makes washing stuff, auxiliary materials for production of various synthetic products, substitutes of vegetative and animal fats), a factory of radio engineering instrumentation, an experimental factory (new samples of road engineering), enterprises of food industry (dairies, meat-processing plants, canneries, etc.), production of building materials and structures.
There is the Rostov Nuclear Power Station near Volgodonsk (construction of the station was suspended in 1990 and is resumed at present).
Volgodonsk has a branch of Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute. There is also a museum of local lore.
The town is mostly built up with microdistricts of 5 - 9-storeyed houses, erected in the 1960 - 1980s.
