Mingachevir, Central Aran Region, Azerbaijan

Economy | Reservoir and Hydroelectric power station | Education

🇦🇿 Mingachevir is the fourth-largest city in Azerbaijan. It's often called the "city of lights" because of its hydroelectric power station on the Kur River, which divides the city down the middle.

The current city was founded in 1948, partly by German prisoners of war captured during World War II. Mingechevir is also home to Mingachevir Polytechnic Institute. The city forms an administrative division of Azerbaijan. The district is located 323 km from Baku and 17 km from the Baku-Tbilisi railway. Geographically, the region is located in the centre of the republic on both sides of the Kura River.

The town lies on both banks of the River Kur - a 1515 km-long river, which is the biggest and longest one in the South Caucasus. (The river originates from Turkey, runs down Georgia and Azerbaijan and flows to the Caspian Sea.) Mingachevir is situated 280–300 km west of the capital of the republic, Baku.

Mingachevir has been developing speedily over the last 54 years since it has been established. It is currently considered to be the fourth city of the country both for its economic potential and the number of inhabitants, it is one of the most important cities of the republic in terms of energy, industry, science, education and culture. The number of able-bodied people in Mingachevir is 53,000, while the number of people actually involved in labour is 16,000. The number of people engaged in small-sized businesses stands at 4,000 people

1

Economy As of 2008, Mingachevir fish farm functions in the city, which farms three types of fishes, including carp, silver carp and sturgeon.

1

Reservoir and Hydroelectric power station The construction of the Mingachevir Dam creating the Mingachevir reservoir and Mingachevir Hydro Power Plant was completed in 1953. The hydroelectric power stations soil dam, whose total capacity is 15.6 cubic km of water, is one of the highest dams in Europe that was constructed through sprinkling. The reservoir is located 3 km north-west of the district. The length of the reservoir is 70 km, width from 3 to 18 km, deepest point about 75 meters and total area 605 km2.

Apart from the River Kur, the reservoir feeds two channels of the 172 km-long Upper Qarabag Channel and the 123 km-long Upper Sirvan Channel. These channels are used to irrigate 10,000 square km of area in the steppes of Mil, Mugan and Sirvan. The Varvara reservoir and the Varvara hydroelectric power station are in 20 km east of the Mingachevir reservoir on the River Kur. The volume of the Varvara hydroelectric power station's energy blocks is 16 MW.

1

Education Mingachevir State University, founded in 1991, is the oldest Azerbaijani educational institution in the city. Although originally part of Azerbaijan State Oil Academy, the institute became independent in 1991. Mingachevir Medical School, founded in 1991, includes 17 study halls for anatomy, therapy, surgery and pediatrics. The city also includes the local branch of the Azerbaijani Teachers Training Institute.

1
Baku Time 
Baku Time
Image: Adobe Stock Elena Odareeva #206342671

Mingachevir has a population of over 106,000 people. Mingachevir also forms one of the centres of the wider Central Aran Region which has a population of over 740,000 people.

To set up a UBI Lab for Mingachevir see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork

Twin Towns, Sister Cities Mingachevir has links with:

🇮🇱 Afula, Israel 🇹🇷 Gölbaşı, Turkey 🇹🇷 Kars, Turkey 🇹🇷 Orhangazi, Turkey 🇧🇾 Polotsk, Belarus 🇷🇺 Tolyatti, Russia
Text Atribution: Wikipedia Text under CC-BY-SA license

Bing Map