Rostov-on-Don guards the Don gateway to the Sea of Azov
Rostov-on-Don is a Russian port over a million strong, capital of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District, on the Don about thirty-two kilometres from the Sea of Azov north of the Caucasus. Ancient Tanais, Genoese Tana, and Ottoman Azak earlier held the river mouth.
In 1749 Empress Elizabeth sited a customs house and fortress named for Dimitry of Rostov on the Temernik tributary; Azov lost trade primacy to the new post. A 1756 Constantinople trading company settled the high bank; as Black Sea lands joined Russia the frontier fort role faded.
The settlement was chartered in 1796, became a district seat in 1797 and took the name Rostov-on-Don in 1806. River links to the Russian interior made it a trading and transport hub; railways reached Kharkiv in 1870, Voronezh in 1871 and Vladikavkaz in 1875, and Donets coal and Krivoy Rog iron ore fed an iron foundry from 1846. By 1900 it registered 119,500 residents. Armenian refugees from Crimea founded neighbouring Nakhichevan-on-Don in 1779; the two merged in 1928, making Rostov Russia's third-largest city, and their old border lies under Teatralnaya Square.
The 20th century was brutal. Germany briefly held the city in 1918, Whites and Reds fought over it in the Civil War, and the Bolsheviks later pulled down the St. Alexander Nevsky and St. George cathedrals. In 1928 the regional government moved here from the old Cossack capital, Novocherkassk. Nazi forces occupied it twice, in late 1941 and from July 1942 to February 1943, massacring up to 30,000 Jews at Zmievskaya Balka, and rebuilding took ten years. It hosted 2018 World Cup matches and houses the headquarters of the Southern Military District.
Source: Rostov-on-Don
