Zhirnovsk

Town and the administrative center of Zhirnovsky District in Volgograd Oblast, Russia, located on the left bank of the Medveditsa River, which itself flows into the Don. Zhirnovsk lies 320 kilometers (200 mi) north of Volgograd, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: 16,872 (2010 Census).
It was founded in 1958 by merging the villages of Zhirnoye Selo (Жи́рное Село́) and Kurakino Selo (Куракино Село́), each of which had been founded in their own right in the 17th and 18th centuries. The merger was prompted by the discovery of significant oil deposits near these villages in the 1940s and the consequent establishment of a worker's housing estate in 1954.