Tolyatti

From Freepedia

Image:Toliatti.jpg Tolyatti (Толья́тти) is a city in Samara Oblast, Russia. Geographical location 53°29′ N 49°31′ E It was founded in 1737 as Stavropol-on-Volga (Ста́врополь). In the 1950s it fell into the flooding zone of the Kuybyshev dam on the Volga river and was completely rebuilt on a new site.

In 1964, the city was renamed Tolyatti (after Palmiro Togliatti, Italian communist leader). As of 2002, it had a population of 701,900. The city is known primarily for the automobile production plants of VAZ (since 1971, in cooperation with the Fiat S.p.A.) and GM-AvtoVAZ (since 2001). It is also the site of one of the largest Orthodox cathedrals in the world.