Slantsy is a Russian town (from 1949), the administrative center of the Slantsy District of the Leningrad Region.

Its population makes 33 249 people (as of 2013).

The town stands on the river Plussa, 125 km away from St. Petersburg.

History of Slantsy

Slantsy was founded due to development of the Gdov combustible slates field discovered in 1926. The local dwellers consider S.M. Kirov, who was the first secretary of the Leningrad regional committee of the Communist Party, to be the founder of Slantsy. It was his initiative that prompted construction of the experimental and operational mine started on April 9, 1930. Since 1996 this date has been celebrated as the town’s birthday, though construction of the settlement was actually started only in 1932. The oldest mine and the central street of Slantsy town are named after S.M. Kirov.

The workers’ township of Slantsy as a part of the Gdov District of the Leningrad Region was founded on December 20, 1934.

On the place of the present-day town there were several rural settlements, with the most important of them — Nikolshchina and Rudnya — settled down on the right bank of Plussa River. Construction of the workers’ quarters was started on the left bank, right near the Kirov mine. The street built up with high two-storeyed barracks housing the miners was named Gornyakov Street (i.e. Miners’ Street); technical officers were settled in one-storeyed two-family houses which formed another street. During the Great Patriotic War most of the buildings were destroyed.

From March 11, 1941 the Slantsy settlement became the center of the Slantsy District. In 1949 it was administratively integrated with another workers’ settlement — Bolshie Luchki — and got the town status.