Bakal



Bakal (Бакал) is a town in Satkinsky District of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the western slopes of the Ural Mountains 264 km west from Chelyabinsk, on the Chelyabinsk–Ufa railroad branch. Population:

History
It was founded in 1757 as a settlement of serfs resettled to man new Bakal iron ore mines owned by the association of Ivan and Yakov Tverdyshev and Ivan Myasnikov.

During 1941-1943 a gulag labor camp existed in the area known as Bakal ITL ("Bakal Corrective Labor Camp"), Bakallag (Бакаллаг, abbr. for "Bakal camp") or Bakalstroy of NKVD (Бакалстрой, abbr. for "Bakal construction"), with headquarters in Chelyabinsk. Main occupations: construction of a metallurgic, coke, and other plants, logging, mining. Peak inmate count: about 4,200. In addition, Bakalstruy was manned by Germans (peak count: over 27,000 (January 1942)).

Town status was granted to Bakal on October 25, 1951.

Economy
The main enterprise is public company "Bakal Mining Administration" (ОАО "Бакальское рудоуправление", commonly referred by its abbreviation, "БРУ"). The bureaucratic-style name is inherited from Soviet times.