a city in Krasnodar Krai, RSFSR. Located on the left bank of the Kuban River where it emerges from the northern foothills of the Caucasus. Junction of highways and of railway lines to Rostov-on-Don, Tuapse, and Baku. Population, 144,000 (1969).

Armavir is second to Krasnodar as an industrial center of Krasnodar Krai. Its industries include food processing (meat-canning combine, oil and fats combine, and others), machine building (tool factories, machine-testing factories, electrotechnical machine factories, and railway and petroleum industry machine factories), woodworking, and light industry. Armavir has a combine for the production of shoe soles out of imitation leather, a glass factory, a ceramics factory, and others. In Armavir there is a pedagogical institute; a branch of the Krasnodar Polytechnic Institute; machine building, mechanical and technological, veterinary, and legal technicums and a medical school. There is a museum of local lore, a drama theater, and a television center.

Armavir was founded in 1839 and became a city in 1914. During the Civil War of 1918–20 there were fierce battles in the vicinity of Armavir. The march of the Taman’ Army ended in Armavir. Soviet power was established in Armavir in March 1920. The city was occupied by the fascist German troops during the Great Patriotic War, 1941–45. Armavir was liberated in January 1943.

the capital and religious center of the ancient Armenian Ararat kingdom (the ruins of which are near the village of Armavir, Oktemberian Raion, Armenian SSR).

Armavir was founded in the fourth century B.C. After the capital was moved to the city of Artashat (second century B.C.)and the Araks River changed its channel, Armavir gradually declined, but it continued to exist until the fifth century A.D. In the vicinity of Armavir there are two rocks inscribed with Greek historical and literary texts from the Hellenistic period.