Founded in 1589 in the vast semidesert near the sharp turn of the Volga river to the Kaspian sea, Tsaritsyn was meant to be the guard kremlin of southern boudaries of the Russian State.

Actually, the town was first built on the Golodny island ("Hungry island"), which is right in the middle of Volga, but due to every-year spring floods, or, maybe, because of the great fire, that destroyed the whole town, it was moved to the delta of the Tsaritsa (Queen) river, which gave the city its first name (tsagy tsa, which in translation from Turkic means "misty water", or, following another version, sary chin - "golden sand").

Since in the Volgograd area the Don river comes closer to Volga than anywhere else, one the purposes of Tsaritsyn, as Peter the Great thought, was to be the transfer point for the military fleet from Volga to Don and then to the Black sea.

There was even a trial to build a river canal from Volga to Don to solve this problem, but that time it didn't work out for many reasons. So, the only way to get ships from one river to another was perevoloka, the way when they would just drag the ship on the ground.

At the end of XVIII century after anexation of Crimea and Kuban (now - Krasnodarsky region) by Russia, the boundaries of the state moved far south, and Volzhsky region was not a bondary zone anymore. Tsaritsyn, which was a guardian fortress for more than 150 years, have lost its military value. Since 1782 it's a district center city of Saratov province.

During all pre-reform period Tsaritsyn stayed a regular out-of-the-way province town, but after the 1861 reformation, in a short period it has grown from a remote little town to a large transport, industrial and trade center of the Lower Volga region.

Three railroad, Tsaritsyn-Gryazi, Tsaritsyn-Tikhoretskaya, Tsaritsyn-Likhaya linked the city with the southern and central parts of the county and with Donbass. Tsaritsyn river port has become of the largest ones in Volga region.

Tsaritsyn looked like a typical province town. In its architecture you'd notice a mixture of all kinds of styles. It was the city of contrasts. Barracs, sand, dust and... building in "vienna" style, electricity, tram and... dirty streets.

Despite high level of industry development, life standard remained catastrofically low. Different kinds of epidemias were taking away thousands of lives.

A large number of factory and plant workers, existance of colony of exiled marxists caused a social-democratic group of Lenin's type (Bolsheviks) to appear. In 1905 this group legalized as a an official city organization. After the 1st Revolution (1905) it had to dissapear and started working underground. Next and last time organization legalized itself in 1917.

In November, 1917, the Soviet Power was established and the city with all the country fell into the darkness of the Civil War.

Same circumstances that turned the city into rather large industrial center in the south-east of Russia in the pre-revolution period, caused it to get deeply involved in battles during the Civil War.

From 1917 till 1919 severe fightings with bandit forms were going on around the city. After that a period of reconstruction of everything that's been destroyed started.

During the Civil War the city was severely damaged and has lost a lot of its power. The fighting with the ruin was started under the guidance of the new government from the communist "voluntary" labor. By the end of twenties many of the industrial objects were reconstructed.

But the Soviet Government didn't just want to re-create the city from ruins. They wanted to build a new world, new society. With a slogan "We'll make our new world for people" the Big Construction has started. And, to raise the spirit of the builders of the New World, in 1925 Tsaritsyn was renamed into Stalingrad.

Since 1926 period of industrial reformation has started in Stalingrad, just as it was in the whole country. Some of the large plants were rebuilt. In 1930 the first Soviet tractor plant, largest in Europe, has produced the first tractor. This plant is still working. One of the large factories renovated was a metallurgical plant "Red October". It was first built in 1897 and now reconstructed.

Years of the first "pyatiletki" (these are the 5-year time periods, which Soviet government used) has turned the city into industrial center of Lower Volga region.

Unfortunatelly, because of such massive, but mostly not very well thought building, now it has turned out that a lot of productions are in the downtown of Volgograd, right among the living appartments.

But in 1941 the War interrupted the civil development of the country. Years of hard trial broke in.

On 17th of July, 1942 the great Stalingrad Battle started. Width of the front line of the battle reached up to 520 kilometers. The fighting was going on on the area of 100 thousand of square kilometers. Stalingrad battle is divided into two periods: defending (17th of July - 18th of November, 1942) and attacking (19th of November 1942 - 2nd of February 1943). In some periods more than 2 million people were taking part from each side, more than 26 thousand pieces of artillery, more than 2 thousand tanks and up to 2 thousand aircrafts. The battle on Volga was going on for 200 days. During 163 days, from August 23, 1942 till February 2, 1943 the battle was fought actually in the city.

The defenders of the city on Volga forged about 50 enemy divisions. During the Stalingrad battle the armies of the fascist block had lost about 1.5 million people, which is almost a quarter of all power acted against U.S.S.R.

We'll talk some more about the battle later.

Even before the war has finished, since April 4, 1943, during just 11 months after the battle, the workers partially or completely reconstructed 30 enterprizes of different branches of industry. On April 22, 1943 from the gates of the tractor plant the first repaired T-34 tank has come out. On its top the workers wrote a message: "Stalingrad's answer".

Central Commitee of Komsomol declared Stalingrad a komsomol construction and made a decision about taking a patronage over plants repairing. By the autumn of 1943 over 23 000 of young workers got to Stalingrad. Great goal gives birth to a great energy. A lot of work has been done even before the War stopped.

The following year repairing was going on with accelerating temps. On confused world's eyes a new city was raising up from ruins and ashes - one of the greatest industrial and cultural centers of the country. It wasn't just a rebuilding. It was a rebirth, a great creation.

Besides industrial development in Stalingrad great scientific and cultural potential is growing. In this period such schools are built as Pedagogical, Polytechnical, Medical and Agricultural colleges. Drama theater has been built.

One of the presents to Stalingrad's re-Birth Day was a planetarium. It was presented to the city by the German Democratic Republic as a sign of mutual respect of German and Russian people.

Everybody who wants, may come and listen the lectures on different topics. Besides that, right near the main building, in the yard, there's an observatory equipped with the refraction telescope "Kral Zeiss Jena" with objective diameter about 250-300 mm. The tube itself is more than 4 meters long. The instrument has got enough power to determine the stars up to 14th size, Neptune's disc and resolve the pairs of doubled stars with the angle distance of half of a second of an arc. You can also buy a ticket into the observatory. Usually, on the bright days you'd see the sun spots on the big screen and hear a lecture about Sun's activity.

First after-war general plan of the city was developed by the group of specialists of Academy of architecture under K. Alabyan's supervision in 1945. It anticipated in reconstruction of the whole structure of the old city.

New plan was based on the traditions of classicism. It's got long prospects and small nice small streets. Very intersting to look at is the city downtown, based on the intersection of the parade Lenin's prospect and the set of squares. Parallel to the prospect on the Central enbankment the Park of Victory was layed out. The following general plans were the continuation of ideas of the first one. Later on Volgograd continued its growth as several highly stretched complexes or, speaking the professional language, it's build using linear-group system.