Balakovo

a city in Saratov Oblast, RSFSR. It also has a landing on the left bank of the Volga, 7 km from the Balakovo railroad station. The population of Balakovo was 103,000 in 1970. There are machine-building (marine and stationary diesel engines) and ship-repair plants, a chemical-fiber combine, and food and construction-materials industries. The Saratov Hydroelectric Power Plant was opened in 1967. As of 1970 a plant manufacturing spare parts and parts for chemical enterprises, a combine for industrial rubber items, a ship-repair plant, and a port were under construction. The General-Technical Department of the Saratov Polytechnical Institute and a chemical engineering technicum are located in Balakovo; there is also the V. I. Chapaev House, now a museum (he lived in Balakovo from 1897 through 1913). Balakovo was founded in the second half of the 18th century; it has been a city since 1913.