Rostov-on-Don
Russia's 'port of five seas' via the Volga-Don Canal—connecting Black, Azov, Caspian, White, and Baltic. Third in foreign trade turnover by 1900. Southern Military District HQ briefly seized by Wagner Group in June 2023. Now 60 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Rostov-on-Don is Russia's gateway to the Caucasus—and its staging ground for every war fought there. Empress Elizabeth Petrovna opened a customs office on the Don River in 1749 to collect duties on trade flowing between Russia's interior and the Black Sea. Peter the Great had wanted a fortress here decades earlier, but the Treaty of the Pruth with the Ottomans blocked him. When the fortress was finally built in 1761, it was named after St. Dmitry of Rostov and later distinguished from ancient Rostov the Great by adding 'on-Don.'
The Don River made the city's fortune. Railway connections to Kharkiv (1870), Voronezh (1871), and Vladikavkaz (1875) transformed Rostov into southern Russia's trade hub. By the early twentieth century, it ranked third nationally in foreign trade turnover. The Volga-Don Shipping Canal, completed in 1952, earned Rostov the title 'port of five seas'—reachable from the Black, Azov, Caspian, White, and Baltic Seas through connected waterways. The Donets Coal Basin fueled heavy industry, and the Rostselmash factory captured over 50% of Russia's agricultural machinery market. Rostvertol became Russia's sole manufacturer of military and civilian helicopters.
The military dimension has always shadowed the commercial. Nazi Germany occupied Rostov twice (1941 and 1942–1943), and the 1942 Zmievskaya Balka massacre killed 30,000 Jews. After the war, the Southern Military District established its headquarters here. In June 2023, the Wagner Group briefly seized those headquarters during an armed rebellion before withdrawing. Rostov sits 60 miles from Ukraine's border, making it a logistics centre for the 2022 invasion and a city permanently marked by the conflicts it services.
With 1.14 million residents in 2025, Rostov's economy blends agriculture, engineering, logistics, and military infrastructure. The net inflow of 8,461 residents in 2024 reflects both industrial jobs and war-related displacement from neighbouring regions. Rostov's geography—connecting Russia's interior to its southern frontiers—is both its asset and its burden: the same crossroads that enables trade also funnels armies.