ABSTRACT
A little South of Stalingrad begins the North Caucasus Region, country which, with the Daghestan Republic and the three Republics of Trans-Caucasia, differs very much from ordinarily accepted ideas of Russia. From a moderate-sized town with one or two important industrial undertakings, run by foreign companies, Stalingrad is rapidly developing into one of the principal cities in Russia. It is the effective terminus of Volga navigation, and is the distributing centre of a large area. Timber felled in the forests of North Russia floats 2,000 miles down the Volga and its tributaries to the Caspian Sea and the oil-fields of Baku. A regular steamer service plies on the Volga between Nizhni-Novgorod and Astrakhan. Although Kazan is generally spoken of as being on the Volga, it is actually five miles from the river. The main avenues of communication are still by river on the Volga, Kama, and Viatka.
