Beslan
Encyclopedia : B : BE : BES : Beslan
Beslan (Russian: ; Ossetic: Беслӕн) is a town located in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Russia and is the administrative center of Pravoberezhny District. The population as of the 2002 Census was 35,550, making Beslan the third largest town in the republic behind Vladikavkaz and Mozdok. The town is located about fifteen kilometers north of Vladikavkaz, at .
Beslan is an important railway junction, situated on the main line between Rostov-on-Don and Baku, and is the starting point of a branch line to Vladikavkaz. It is an industrial-agricultural town dominated by a large corn processing plant established in the 1940s.
The town was founded in 1847 by migrants from elsewhere in Ossetia and was named Beslanykau ("the settlement of Beslan") after a local lord, Beslan Tulatov. In official use, though, the town was known after Tulatov's surname as Tulatovo or Tulatovskoye. It was renamed Iriston (Ossetia) in 1941 and in 1950, when the rapidly industrializing town was unified into a single municipality, it was renamed as Beslan.
On September 1, 2004, Beslan's Middle School Number One was seized by Chechen terrorists. The siege ended on September 3 with a bloody shootout between the terrorists and Russian security forces. See Beslan school hostage crisis for more details.
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| Cities and towns in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania |
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| Capital: Vladikavkaz Alagir | Ardon | Beslan | Digora | Mozdok |
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