Описание (английский)
Saratov is a city and the administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River located upstream (north) of Volgograd.
Uvek, a city of the Golden Horde, stood near the site of the modern city of Saratov from the mid-13th century until its destruction by Tamerlane in 1395. While the exact date of the foundation of modern Saratov is unknown, all plausible theories date it to ca. 1590, during the reign (1584–1598) of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, who constructed several settlements along the Volga River in order to secure the southeastern boundary of his state. Town status was granted to it in 1708.
By the 1800s, Saratov had grown to become an important shipping port on the Volga. The Ryazan-Ural Railroad reached Saratov in 1870.
In 1896 (26 years later), the line crossed the Volga and continued its
eastward expansion. A unique train-ferry, owned by the Ryazan-Ural
railroad, provided the connection across the river between the two parts
of the railroad for 39 years, before the construction of a railway
bridge in 1935.
During January 1915, with World War I
dominating the Russian national agenda, Saratov became the destination
for deportation convoys of ethnic Germans, Jews, Hungarians, Austrians
and Slavs whose presence closer to the western front was perceived as a
potential security risk to the state.
During World War II, Saratov was a station on the North-South Volzhskaya Rokada, a specially designated military railroad supplying troops, ammunition and supplies to Stalingrad.
Until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Soviet authorities designated Saratov a "closed city"—strictly
off-limits to all foreigners due to its military importance as the site
of a vital facility manufacturing military aircraft.