Shakhty (Шахты)Not from from Rostov on the Don is the city of Шахты. Shakhty is difficult to pronounce correctly but is a city of very nice Russian and Ukrainian folk in the Rostov region. It is a coal mining city of about 285,000. Very poor and the unemployment approaches 40% unfortunately. As a result alcoholism, drug use and crime is high.
Public transportation: Almost gone. Buses and trolley no longer work and the street conditions are unthinkably bad. There is маршру́тка service however. And the train from Moscow stops twice daily.
1917 saw the city change hands three times, until it was taken on April 28th, 1919, by the Don Army, under General Fitzkhelaurov. For 20 months it was independent of the Bolsheviks, but was ravaged by typhoid. On January 13, 1921 it was finally given its present name. The name "Shakhty" ("mine shafts" in English) was chosen, because of the city's association with coal mining. During the 1920s, many of the churches and the archives were destroyed. As with the rest of the Soviet Union, the street names were all changed.
In July, 1942, during the Great Patriotic War the town was occupied by Nazi Germany; many coal pits and buildings were blown up by the Nazis during their retreat in February, 1943. 29 of the townsmen were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
In 1948, production levels in the mines reached what they had been before the war. During the Brezhnev years, the city was at the height of its development, with a population of over 250 thousand, and about 10 million tons of coal being mined each year.
Perestroika proved devastating for the city, as mines were privatised and shut down, causing massive unemployment, which led to a severe rise in crime and drug abuse. Today Shakhty is the main industrial center of the Eastern Donbass. The city is also one of the main producers and exporters of tile in Eastern Europe, Shakhtinskaya Plitka (шахтинская плитка).
Outside Russia at least, the town is mainly known because of the Shakhty Trial of 1928, a precursor of the show trials of the 1930s, and for being the scene of many of Chikatilo's murders. Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo ( Андрей Романович Чикати́ло) (October 16, 1936—February 14, 1994) was a Russian serial killer, nicknamed the Butcher of Rostov, The Red Ripper or The Rostov Ripper. He was convicted of the murders of 52 women and children, mostly in Rostov oblast, Russian SFSR, between 1978 and 1990 (some victims were murdered in other regions of Russia and in the Ukrainian SSR and in the Uzbek SSR). His crimes in some part were overlooked at first because Soviet authorities refused to admit that a "socialist paradise"could give rise to a serial killer. At first as the number of murders mounted the Soviets suppressed the news from innocent towns people because of fears the crimes would give Communism a bad rap.
Above: "Кубок Кавказа," or "The Cup of Caucasus" is held in Shakhty as a competition between emergency rescue units who part the Caucasus mountain regions.