Belaya Kalitva

Town in Rostov oblast (province), oblast subordination, rayon (sector) centre, 168 km north-east of Rostov-on-Don. Located in the north-eastern end of the Donets Ridge, on the Seversky Donets River, at its confluence with the Kalitva River. Railway station in the Likhaya - Volgograd line. Highway (Volgograd - Kishinyov). Airport. Population (1992 est.) 48.8 thousand, (1979 est.) 38 thousand.

Arose in 1703 as the stanitsa (Cossack village) of Ust-Belokalitvenskaya; the industrial community of Belaya Kalitva since 1941, town since 1958. Modern Belaya Kalitva is the centre of coal mining (Eastern Donbass) and agriculture (meat and dairy cattle-breeding, aviculture, grain and technical crops). There is an agricultural machine-building plant, a metal works, enterprises of light and food-processing industry, enterprises for production of building materials.

In the 1960 - 1980s, multi-storeyed residential houses on the left bank of the Kalitva River (the microdistrict of Solnechny) were built in the town. 1991 saw opening of a new road bridge across Kalitva, which connected the left bank with the town centre. A road bridge across Seversky Donets (1992) in under construction.