Beslan

Centre of Pravoberezhny rayon (sector) in North Ossetia, 22 km north of Vladikavkaz. Located on the Ossetian Slanting Plain, on the right bank of the Terek River. Railway junction in the Rostov-on-Don - Baku line (Beslan is the starting point of a railway branch to Vladikavkaz). The town is crossed by the Rostov-on-Don - Baku highway. Population (1992 est.) 34.1 thousand, (1979 est.) 28.9 thousand.

Arose as a settlement around a large starch-molasses complex. Town since 1950. Modern Beslan is an industrial and agricultural centre. There is a corn (the former starch-molasses) complex (processing corn into starch, molasses, glucose, oil, dry feed-stuff for cattle breeding), the Avtospetsoborudovanie plant, an electromechanical works, an abaca, etc., an enterprise for production of building materials.

The town is mostly built up with two-storeyed houses of the end of the 1940-1950`s.