Melekess

a city in Ul’ianovsk Oblast, RSFSR. It has a landing on the Kuibyshev reservoir where the Bol’shoi Cheremshan River empties into it and a railroad station on the UFianovsk-Ufa line, 90 km east of Ulianovsk. Population, 90,000 (1973; 18,000 in 1926, 32,000 in 1939, and 51,000 in 1959).

Local industry includes an auto assembly plant, a chemical machine building plant, a flax combine, a combine producing industrial fabrics, a factory producing stockings and socks, and a factory producing nonwoven materials. The food industry consists of flour milling and groats processing. There is an atomic power plant with a capacity of 50 megawatts and a scientific research institute on atomic reactors. Melekess is the site of a branch of the Ulianovsk Polytechnical Institute. It also has agricultural, automotive, and dairy technicums and a music school and a drama theater. In June 1972 the city was renamed Dimitrovgrad in honor of G. M. Dimitrov.