CHELYABINSK

also spelled Cheliabinsk, or Cel'abinsk, city and administrative centre, Chelyabinsk oblast (province), west-central Russia. It lies on the eastern flank of the Ural Mountains and on the Miass River. Chelyabinsk was founded as a fortress in 1736 on the site of a Bashkir village; it became a town in 1787. First a local centre of an agricultural region, it began to grow with the coming of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 189496. Thereafter growth was continuous; it was greatly stimulated by the eastward evacuation of industry in World War II. Today Chelyabinsk is the major focus of the southern half of the Urals industrial region, well served by rail connections to other industrial cities. One of the most important industrial centres of Russia, it has large ironworks and steelworks, a zinc refinery, a ferroalloys plant, chemical industries, and a wide range of heavy- and medium-engineering industries, producing steel pipes and pressings, bulldozers, scrapers, tractors, industrial machinery, and machine tools. The first natural gas from Urengoy, the largest Siberian gas field in operation, reached Chelyabinsk in 1979. Chelyabinsk has a university and a large polytechnic institute as well as medical, teacher-training, and agricultural-mechanization institutes and many scientific-research institutes. There are also an opera, ballet, and other theatres and a philharmonic hall. Pop. (1994 est.) 1,124,500. also spelled Cheliabinsk, or Cel'abinsk, oblast (province), west-central Russia. It is sited on the eastern flank of the Ural Mountains; a winding panhandle extends across to the western slopes. In the extreme east, the oblast extends onto the West Siberian Plain. The higher mountain areas are clothed in pine, fir, spruce, and birch, and the lower east is in steppe, with birch groves in the north. The oblast, in the Urals industrial region, is rich in minerals: iron ores, titanium, nickel, gold, lignite, copper, zinc, and chromite. Serious depletion of local iron ores in the 1960s led to their importation from Kazakstan and also from the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly of Belgorod and Kursk oblasti; coking coal is brought from Qaraghandy in Kazakstan. On the basis of the minerals, large-scale heavy industry has developed, with iron and steel plants in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk city (the administrative headquarters), Zlatoust, Satka, and Asha and a wide range of heavy- and medium-engineering industries in many towns. The chemical industry is also important. Agriculture is significant in the eastern steppe, on which considerable acreages were plowed under the Soviet regime's Virgin and Idle Lands Campaign of the 1950s. Wheat is the main crop, but potatoes and other vegetables are grown in quantity for the towns. Beef, dairy cattle, and sheep are also important. Area 33,900 square miles (87,900 square km). Pop. (1995 est.) 3,690,000.