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Beslan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beslan (Russian: Бесла́н; Ossetic: Беслӕн) is a town located in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Russia, about fifteen kilometers north of Vladikavkaz. It is the administrative center of Pravoberezhny District. Beslan is the third largest town in the republic behind Vladikavkaz and Mozdok. Its population as of the 2002 Census was 35,550, up from 32,469 recorded in the 1989 Census).
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 Secondary School Number One was seized by suspected Chechen terrorists. The siege ended on September 3 with a bloody shootout between the terrorists and Russian security forces. According to official data, 344 civilians were killed, 186 of them children, and hundreds more wounded.
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Cities and towns in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania |  |
| Capital: Vladikavkaz |
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