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Volgograd
Volgograd (English); Волгоград (Russian)
— Inhabited locality —
; Volgograd railway station
	; Volgograd on the map of European Russia
	Coordinates: 48°42′N 44°31′E / 48.7°N 44.517°ECoordinates: 48°42′N 44°31′E / 48.7°N 44.517°E
; Coat of arms	; Flag
Holiday	Second Sunday of September[citation needed]
	Administrative status
Country	Russia
Federal subject	Volgograd Oblast
In administrative jurisdiction of	Volgograd Oblast[citation needed]
Administrative center of	Volgograd Oblast[citation needed]
	Municipal status
Municipal Status	Urban okrug
Head[citation needed]	Roman Grebennikov[citation needed]
Representative body	City Duma[citation needed]
	Statistics
Area	565 km2 (218.1 sq mi)[citation needed]
Population (2002 Census)	1,011,417 inhabitants
- Rank	12th
- Density	1,790 /km2 (4,600/sq mi)
Time zone	MSK/MSD (UTC+3/+4)
Founded	1555[citation needed]
Postal code(s)	400001..400138[citation needed]
Dialing code(s)	+7 8442[citation needed]
Official website	http://www.volgadmin.ru

"Stalingrad" redirects here. For other uses, see Stalingrad (disambiguation).

Volgograd (Russian: Волгогра́д [,vɔlgə'grʌd] (help·info)), formerly called Tsaritsyn (Russian: Цари́цын (help·info)) (1589–1925) and Stalingrad (Russian: Сталингра́д (help·info)) (1925–1961) is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is 80 kilometres (50 mi) long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River and has a population of 1.011 millon people. The city was made famous for its resistance and extensive damage during the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II.

[edit] History

Coat of Arms of Tsaritsyn (1857)

Volgograd originated with the foundation in 1589 of the fortress of Tsaritsyn at the confluence of the Tsaritsa and Volga Rivers. The fortress Sary Su (a local Tatar language name meaning: Yellow Water/River ), was established to defend the unstable southern border of Tsarist Russia. It soon becamse the nucleus of a trading settlement. It was captured twice by Cossack rebels, under Stepan Razin in the rebellion of 1670 and Yemelyan Pugachev in 1774. Tsaritsyn became an important river port and commercial centre in the 19th century.

The city was the scene of heavy fighting during the Russian Civil War. Bolshevik forces occupied it during 1918, but were attacked by White forces under Anton Ivanovich Denikin.

Under Stalin, the city became heavily industrialized as a centre of heavy industry and trans-shipment by rail and river. During World War II (Great Patriotic War), Stalingrad became the center of the Battle of Stalingrad as well as a pivotal turning point in the war against Germany. Essentially, the German offensive was checked at Stalingrad. The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from August 21, 1942 to February 2, 1943, where 1.7 million to 2 million Axis and Soviet soldiers were killed, wounded or captured, in addition to over 40,000 civilians killed. The city was reduced to rubble during the fierce fighting, but reconstruction began soon after the Germans were expelled from the city.

Stalingrad was awarded the title Hero City for its heroism in 1945, and King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded the citizens of Stalingrad the jeweled "Sword of Stalingrad" in admiration of their bravery. A memorial complex commemorating the battle, dominated by an immense allegorical sculpture of Mother Russia, was erected on the Mamayev Kurgan, a hill that saw some of the most intense fighting during the battle. A number of cities around the world (especially that which had suffered similar wartime devastation) established sister/friendship/twinning links (see list below) in the spirit of solidarity or reconciliation. One of the first "sister city" projects was that established between Stalingrad and Britain's Coventry during World War II (as both suffered extensive devastation from aerial bombardment).

The Panorama Museum sited on the Volga contains artifacts from World War II. These include a panoramic painting of the battlefield from the location of the monument "Mamayev Kurgan." A rifle of the famous sniper Vasily Zaytsev (popularized in Western media in the film Enemy at the Gates) is also on display.

In 1961, Stalingrad was changed to Volgograd ("Volga City") as part of Nikita Khrushchev's programme of de-Stalinization. This was and remains somewhat contentious, given the fame of the name "Stalingrad" and its importance in wartime remembrance. There were once serious proposals to revert the name to "Stalingrad" during Konstantin Chernenko's brief administration in 1985. There remains a strong degree of local support for a reversion but intermittent proposals have been not yet accepted by the Russian government. On May 21, 2007, the CPRF or Communist Party of the Russian Federation obtained an important success in the Volgograd mayoral election. Communist candidate Roman Grebennikov was elected as mayor with 32.47% of the vote. Grebennikov is Russia's youngest mayor of a regional capital.

[edit] Economy

Modern Volgograd remains an important industrial city. Industries include shipbuilding, oil refining, steel and aluminium production, manufacture of machinery and vehicles, and chemical production. A large Volgograd Hydroelectric Plant stands a short distance to the north of Volgograd.

Volgograd on the 1979 map

[edit] Transport

Volgograd is a major railway junction serviced by Pri Volga Railway. Rail links include Moscow; Saratov; Astrakha; the Donbas region of Ukraine; the Caucasus and Siberia. It stands at the east end of the Volga-Don Canal, opened in 1952 to link the two great rivers of Southern Russia. European route E40, the longest European route connecting Calais, France with Ridder, Kazakhstan, passes through Volgograd. Volgograd's public transport system includes a light rail service known as the Volgograd metrotram.

Volgograd is a major rail junction and with trains travelling from the city to Moscow, Saratov, Astrakhan and other cities . The M6 highway between Moscow and the Caspian Sea passes the city. The Volgograd Bridge, under construction since 1995, has been inaugurated in October 2009.^[3] The city river terminal is the centre for local passenger shipping along the Volga river.

Volgograd International Airport provides air links to major Russian cities as well as Antalya, Yerevan and Aktau.

Local public transport is provided by buses trolleybuses and trams.

[edit] Climate

Weather data for Volgograd)
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high °C (°F)	-4.5 (24)	-4.3 (24)	2.6 (37)	15.4 (60)	22.7 (73)	26.9 (80)	29.3 (85)	27.9 (82)	21.6 (71)	12.2 (54)	4.0 (39)	-1.9 (29)	12.7 (55)
Average low °C (°F)	-10.7 (13)	-10.7 (13)	-4.5 (24)	5.1 (41)	12.0 (54)	16.1 (61)	18.4 (65)	17.1 (63)	11.6 (53)	4.0 (39)	-1.3 (30)	-7.0 (19)	4.2 (40)
Precipitation mm (inches)	10.0 (0.39)	11.3 (0.44)	26.2 (1.03)	37.5 (1.48)	58.6 (2.31)	53.9 (2.12)	55.7 (2.19)	51.2 (2.02)	48.0 (1.89)	32.4 (1.28)	15.8 (0.62)	9.9 (0.39)	410.5 (16.16)
Source: Гидрометцентр России^[4] 2008-08-31

[edit] Education

Institutions include:

Volgograd State University,
Volgograd State Technical University (former Volgograd Polytechnical University),
Volgograd State Medical University,
Volgograd State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering,
Volgograd Academy of Industry, * Volgograd Academy of Business Administration, and
Volgograd State Pedagogical University.

[edit] Sport

FC Volgograd and FC Rotor Volgograd are both Russian Second Division football clubs, having been relegated after being in the Russian Premier League in the early 1990s. Lukoil-Spartak represent the city in water polo.

[edit] Famous residents

Ilya Borodin - footballer
Zakhar Dubenskiy - footballer
Oleg Grebnev - hand ball player
Larisa Ilchenko - long distance swimmer
Yelena Isinbayeva, pole vaulter
Lev Ivanov (football manager)
Yuriy Kalitvintsev, Ukrainian football manager
Elem Klimov, film director
Vladimir Kryuchkov, politician
Tatyana Lebedeva, long jumper and triple jumper
Maxim Marinin, figure skater
Maxim Opalev, sprint canoer
Denis Pankratov Olympic swimmer
Aleksandra Pakhmutova, composer
Anton Sakharov, footballer
Oleg Sergeyev, footballer
Natalia Shipilova, handball player
Yelena Slesarenko, high jumper
Igor Vasilev, handball player
Oleg Veretennikov, footballer
Evgeni Plushenko, Olympic gold medal figure skater

[edit] International relations

Main article: List of twin towns and sister cities in Russia

[edit] Twin towns — Sister cities

As of 2008, Volgograd has 21 sister cities^[5]:

Coventry, England, United Kingdom (1943)
Ostrava, Czech Republic (1948)
Kemi, Finland (1953)
Liège, Belgium (1959)
Dijon, France (1959)
Turin, Italy (1961)
Port Said, Egypt (1962)

Chennai, India (1966)
Hiroshima, Japan (1972)^[6]
Cologne, Germany (1988)
Chemnitz, Germany (1988)
Cleveland, Ohio, United States (1990)
Toronto, Canada (1991)
Jilin, China (1994)

Yerevan, Armenia (1998)
Chengdu, China (1998)
Kruševac, Serbia (1999)
Rousse, Bulgaria (2001)^[7]
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, United States (2003)
Orlando, Florida, United States (2008)
Baku, Azerbaijan (2008) ^[8]

A number of communities in France and Italy have streets or avenues named after Stalingrad, hence Place de Stalingrad in Paris and the eponymous Paris Métro station of Stalingrad.

[edit] Gallery

Volgograd from Space	Map of Volgograd's City Districts	The Motherland Calls on the Mamayev Kurgan in spring time	The Mamayev kurgan
Volgograd Planetarium with the sculpture by famous Vera Mukhina	Underground station of Volgograd metrotram — Lenin's Square	Volgograd State Medical University (left) and New Experimental Theater of Volgograd