Tolyatti: the former Stavropol, which was saved from flooding and named after the Italian

The city of Togliatti, located on the left bank of the Volga, has survived three births in its history. The first time during the foundation of the city, which was called Stavropol, the second time during its transfer to a new place to save from flooding, and the third time after the city received a new name in honor of the famous Italian. Today we’ll talk about the unusual fate of the city of Togliatti.

At the time of its foundation in 1737, the city of Tolyatti received the name Stavropol. The fortified city on the banks of the Volga River, as conceived by the founder Vasily Tatishchev, was supposed to protect the country from attacks by southern nomadic peoples. In addition, Kalmyks who converted to Christianity were also resettled here. The city grew and developed rapidly, and by 1745 almost 6 thousand people already lived in the fortress. An interesting fact is that by the end of the 18th century Samara was assigned to Stavropol as a settlement and was noticeably inferior to it in terms of development.

But in the XIX century, the population decreases, life in Stavropol gradually freezes and the city is already inferior to Samara in importance. There is a legend that at the end of the XIX century the city of Stavropol was visited by the priest John of Kronstadt, who predicted the future flooding of the city.

In the 40s and 50s of the last century, the Volga River was involved in a grandiose plan to provide the country with cheap electricity. Several reservoirs were built on it and powerful hydroelectric stations were launched. When in 1950 the decision was made to build the Kuibyshev reservoir, it turned out that the territory of the city of Stavropol completely falls into the flood zone. At that time, about 12,000 people lived in the city.

In 1953-1955, the city of Stavropol was moved, and the old location of the city was completely flooded in 1957 after the filling of the Kuibyshev reservoir.

The city of Tolyatti received its modern name in 1964. To this day, the city bears the name of the Italian communist leader Palmiro Tolyatti. In the middle of the last century, communism was quite popular in many countries of Europe, including Italy. Under the leadership of Palmiro Togliatti, the Communist Party of Italy was repeatedly elected to the country's parliament, and Togliatti himself was Minister of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister of the country.

A new page in the history of the city began in 1966 after the construction of the Volga Automobile Plant. Today, the city of Togliatti is the largest automotive center in our country, and more than 700 thousand people live in it.