Shakhty is a city in
Rostov OblastRostov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Southern Federal District. Rostov Oblast lies in the south of Russia with an area of 100,800 km² and a population of 4,404,013 making it the fifth most populous federal subject in Russia...
,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. It is located on the southeastern spur of Donetsk mountain ridge, 75 km northeast from
Rostov-on-DonRostov-on-Don is the city and the administrative center of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia, located on the Don River, just 46 km from the Sea of Azov. Population: -Geography:...
. Its population was 222,592 as of the
2002 CensusRussian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...
.
Founded on October 3, 1867 as
Gornoye Grushevskoye settlement, from 1881 till 1921 it was called
Alexandrovsk-Grushevsky .
By 1914, the population had reached 54 thousand. The main source of income was
coal miningCoal mining is the extraction or removal of coal from the earth by mining. When coal is used for fuel in power generation it is referred to as steaming or thermal coal. Coal that is used to create coke for steel manufacturing is referred to as coking or metallurgical coal...
, which had been carried out in that region since the 18th century.
Shakhty is a city in
Rostov OblastRostov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Southern Federal District. Rostov Oblast lies in the south of Russia with an area of 100,800 km² and a population of 4,404,013 making it the fifth most populous federal subject in Russia...
,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. It is located on the southeastern spur of Donetsk mountain ridge, 75 km northeast from
Rostov-on-DonRostov-on-Don is the city and the administrative center of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia, located on the Don River, just 46 km from the Sea of Azov. Population: -Geography:...
. Its population was 222,592 as of the
2002 CensusRussian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...
.
History
Founded on October 3, 1867 as
Gornoye Grushevskoye settlement, from 1881 till 1921 it was called
Alexandrovsk-Grushevsky .
By 1914, the population had reached 54 thousand. The main source of income was
coal miningCoal mining is the extraction or removal of coal from the earth by mining. When coal is used for fuel in power generation it is referred to as steaming or thermal coal. Coal that is used to create coke for steel manufacturing is referred to as coking or metallurgical coal...
, which had been carried out in that region since the 18th century. The population was poor, but the town had rail, telegraph and telephone networks, electricity and plumbing as well as libraries, hospitals and a post office. Most of the merchants and industrialists lived in Rostov and
NovocherkasskNovocherkassk is a city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the right bank of the Tuzlov River and on the Aksay River. It was formerly the capital of the Don Cossacks...
.
1917 saw the city change hands three times, until it was taken on April 28, 1919, by the
Don ArmyThe Don Army was part of the White movement of the Russian Civil War, operating from 1917 to 1919, in the Don region and centered in the town of Novocherkassk.- History :...
, under General Fitzkhelaurov. For 20 months it was independent of the Bolsheviks, but was ravaged by typhoid.
On January 13, 1921 it was finally given its present name. The name "Shakhty" ("mine shafts" in English) was chosen, because of the city's association with coal mining. During the 1920s, many of the churches and the archives were destroyed. As with the rest of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, the street names were all changed.
In July, 1942, during the Great Patriotic War the town was occupied by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
; many coal pits and buildings were blown up by the Nazis during their retreat in February, 1943.
29 of the townsmen were awarded the title of
Hero of the Soviet UnionThe title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society.-Overview:...
.
In 1948, production levels in the mines reached what they had been before the war. During the Brezhnev years, the city was at the height of its development, with a population of over 250 thousand, and about 10 million tons of coal being mined each year.
Perestroikais the Russian term for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
proved devastating for the city, as mines were privatised and shut down, causing massive unemployment, which led to a severe rise in crime and drug abuse.
Today Shakhty is the main industrial center of the Eastern Donbass.
The city is also one of the main producers and exporters of tile in Eastern Europe, Shakhtinskaya Plitka (шахтинская плитка).
Historical concepts
Outside Russia at least, the town is mainly known because of the
Shakhty TrialThe Shakhty Trial of 1928 was the first important show trial in the Soviet Union since the trial of the Social Revolutionaries in 1922.Under communist mismanagement, coal production had fallen steadily in the area for several years...
of 1928, a precursor of the
show trialThe term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial. The term was first recorded in the 1930s. There is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant and that the actual trial has as its only goal to present the...
s of the 1930s, and for being the scene of many of Chikatilo's murders.
External links