Krasnovodsk

a city in the Turkmen SSR, a large port on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, at the foot of the Kubadag Range; since 1962 linked with Baku by a seagoing rail ferry. It is the point of departure for the railroad that links Krasnovodsk with the Middle Asian republics. Population, 51,000 (1972; 7,000 in 1913; 21,000 in 1939). Since Dec. 27, 1973, Krasnovodsk has been the administrative center of Krasnovodsk Oblast.

Krasnovodsk was founded as a military fortification in 1869 by Russian troops under the command of Gen. N. G. Stoletov and began to develop after a branch of the Middle Asian Rail-road was built there in 1896. Soviet rule was established there on Oct. 30 (Nov. 12), 1917. In late August 1918, Krasnovodsk was occupied by British interventionists. On the night of Sept. 19–20, 1918, at the 207th verst from Krasnovodsk (the span between the stations of Akhcha-Kuima and Pereval), British interventionists and Socialist Revolutionaries shot 26 Baku commissars. On Feb. 6, 1920, Krasnovodsk was liberated by units of the Red Army.

During the years of socialist construction, an oil refinery (receiving crude oil by pipeline from the republic’s oilfields), a shipyard, and a building-materials plant were built in Krasnovodsk. It has a food industry (fishing, fish-processing, meat), a clothing factory, and a heat and electric power plant. There is an evening general-engineering department of the Moscow Institute of the Petrochemical and Gas Industry, a technicum of chemical technology, a medical school, and the 26 Baku Commissars Museum.

The Krasnovodsk commercial seaport loads and unloads coastal vessels and has a complex of structures to receive the sea ferry from Baku, which transports railroad cars with grain, flour, cotton, equipment, and so on.