Bakal

For other uses, see Bakal (disambiguation)}}}.

Bakal (Russian: ) is a town in Satkinsky District, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. Population: 22,314 (2002 Census); 21,700 (2001 est.). It is situated in the taiga on the Western slope of Ural Mountains, 258 km west from Chelyabinsk, on the railroad branch Chelyabinsk–Ufa.

Bakal was founded in 1757 as a settlement of serfs resettled to man new Bakal iron ore mines owned by the association of Ivan and Yakov Tverdyshev (Иван & Яков Твердышевы) and Ivan Myasnikov (Мясников Иван Семенович).

Bakal town was created in 1951 by joining several miners' settlements.

The main enterprise is public company "Bakal Mining Administration" (ОАО "Бакальское рудоуправление", commonly referred by its abbreviation, "БРУ"). The bureaucratic-style name is inherited from Soviet times.

During 1941-1943 a gulag labor camp existed in the area known as Bakal ITL ("Bakal Corrective Labor Camp"), Bakallag (Бакаллаг, abbr. for "Bakal camp") or Bakalstroy of USSR NKVD (Бакалстрой, abbr. for "Bakal construction"), with headquarters in Chelyabinsk. Main occupations: construction of a metallurgic, coke, and other plants, logging, mining. Peak inmate count: about 4,200. In addition, Bakalstruy was manned by Germans (peak count: over 27,000 (January 1942)).

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