Апатит қаласы: тарихы мен географиясы

Town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia

Apatity (, lit. apatites) is a town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia, located along the Murman Railway, west of Kirovsk and south of Murmansk, the administrative center of the oblast. The town is named after one of its most abundant natural resources in the area, apatite, the raw mineral used in the production of phosphorus mineral fertilizers. Population:

The town is located on the Kola Peninsula, between Lake Imandra and the Khibiny Mountains, by the left bank of the Belaya River.

The passing loop of Bely (разъезд Бе́лый) on the Leningrad–Murmansk Railway was built in 1926 and the settlement of Apatity was founded in 1930. It was classified as an urban locality by the All Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) Resolution of August 20, 1935, when the settlement of pri sovkhoze "Industriya" was merged into Apatity and it was granted work settlement status. Many of the early settlers in the Apatity area were former "rich peasants" from several regions of Northwestern Russia, resettled to Murmansk Oblast as part of Stalin's Dekulakization program. Members of certain ethnic minorities were deported to Apatity as well. On January 6, 1966, the Murmansk Oblast Executive Committee petitioned to transform the work settlement of Molodyozhny in jurisdiction of Kirovsk into a town under oblast jurisdiction called Khibinogorsk and on subordinating a part of the area in Kirovsk's jurisdiction to it. The petition was reviewed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, which, however, decreed on July 7, 1966 to merge the work settlements of Molodyozhny and Apatity into a town under oblast jurisdiction, which would retain the name Apatity. As a municipal division, Apatity Town with Jurisdictional Territory is incorporated as Apatity Urban Okrug.

The main employer of Apatity is JSC "Apatit", the largest mining and concentrating enterprise in Europe and Russia. Other employers include the Kola Science Center of the Russian Academy of Science and various state and private enterprises. The joint civilian military Kirovsk Apatity Airport is located southeast of the town.