Volgograd Oblast

Volgograd Oblast (Russian: Волгогра́дская о́бласть vuhl-guh-GRAHT-skee OH-bluhst’) is a region in the Lower Volga, bordering Rostov Oblast to the southwest, Voronezh Oblast to the northwest, Saratov Oblast to the north, Kazakhstan to the east, Astrakhan Oblast to the southeast, and Kalmykia to the south.

The one big tourist attraction in Volgograd Oblast is without a doubt Volgograd and Mamaev Kurgan; the rest of the region has little in the way of a developed tourist industry and is well off the beaten path.

Volgograd Oblast is largely agricultural and steppe, save the major industrial areas along the Volga and the Don Rivers.

• Volgograd — the Hero City of Stalingrad
• Kamyshin
• Uryupinsk — a nation-wide joke as the quintessential inconspicuous backwater town following its use as the location for Mikhail Sholokhov's The Fate of a Man, which was later made into a popular Soviet movie
• Volzhsky — a big heavy industry city built in the 1950s for the construction of the Volga Hydroelectric Station (the largest in Europe and responsible for an ecological disaster that threatened the Caspian Beluga sturgeon, the source of the world's finest caviar)

• Mamaev Kurgan — just above Volgograd, the site of the Battle of Stalingrad now is a massive complex of monuments to the 20th century's most important battle

Expect to only hear Russian

Flights come to Volgograd airport from all over Russia — the flight from Moscow takes about an hour and a half. Volgograd is also a major rail hub, serving as one of the two principal rail gateways to Southern Russia.

Volgograd is the primary rail junction for travelers heading south to historic Astrakhan Oblast and strange Kalmykia.