Zhirnovsk
Encyclopedia
Zhirnovsk is a town and the administrative center of Zhirnovsky District
Zhirnovsky District
Zhirnovsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the 33 in Volgograd Oblast, Russia....

 of Volgograd Oblast
Volgograd Oblast
Volgograd Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Volgograd. Population: -Geography:*Area: 113,900 km²;*Borders length: 2221,9 km²....

, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, located on the left bank of the Medveditsa River
Medveditsa River (Don basin)
Medveditsa is a river in Volgograd and Saratov Oblasts in Russia, a left tributary of the Don River. The name means she-bear, and according to legend alludes to the large population of bears in the area in earlier times...

, which itself flows into the Don River. Zhirnovsk lies 320 kilometres (198.8 mi) north of Volgograd
Volgograd
Volgograd , formerly called Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River...

 and 70 kilometres (43.5 mi) south of its nearest town, Kalininsk, which is in neighboring Saratov Oblast
Saratov Oblast
Saratov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Volga Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Saratov. Population: -Demographics:Population:...

. Population:

It was founded in 1958 by merging the villages of Zhirnoye Selo (}) and Kurakino Selo , each of which had been founded in their own right in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 1940s, significant oil deposits were discovered in close proximity to the aforementioned villages, and so, the decision to conflate the two small villages into one larger town was arrived at soon thereafter. This process of amalgamation began in 1954 with the newly formed town functioning as a worker's housing estate. In this year, Zhirnovsk was granted the status of urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement ; , selyshche mis'koho typu ) is an official designation for a type of locality used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union...

, and four years later, with a census finding a population of almost 10,000, Zhirnovsk was awarded its municipal rights, thereby being granted its status as a town. As of 2010, the processing and promotion of oil and gas remains the towns chief industry, and so, it is considered that the lives of its inhabitants are characterised by a higher standard of living relative to other towns in the Volgograd Province.
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