Kalach-na-Donu or Kalach-on-the-Don, is a town and the administrative center of Kalachyovsky District

Kalachyovsky District

Kalachyovsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the 33 in Volgograd Oblast, Russia....

 of Volgograd Oblast

Volgograd Oblast

Volgograd Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Volgograd. Population: -Geography:*Area: 113,900 km²;*Borders length: 2221,9 km²....

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, located on the Don River

Don River (Russia)

The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....

 85 kilometres (52.8 mi) west of Volgograd

Volgograd

Volgograd , formerly called Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River...

. Population:

It was founded in 1708 as a Cossack sloboda

Sloboda

Sloboda was a kind of settlement in the history of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The name is derived from the early Slavic word for "freedom" and may be vaguely translated as "free settlement"....

. Town status was granted to it in 1951.

During Operation Uranus

Operation Uranus

Operation Uranus was the codename of the Soviet strategic operation in World War II which led to the encirclement of the German Sixth Army, the Third and Fourth Romanian armies, and portions of the German Fourth Panzer Army. The operation formed part of the ongoing Battle of Stalingrad, and was...

, several Soviet tank corps encircled the besieging German 6th Army in Stalingrad by capturing this town, thus cutting off German supply routes.