Magnitogorsk (, ) is an industrial city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, on the eastern side of the extreme southern extent of the Ural Mountains by the Ural River. Its population is It was named after Mount Magnitnaya, a geological anomaly that once consisted almost completely of iron ore, around 55% to 60% iron. It is the second-largest city in Russia that is not the administrative centre of any federal subject or district. Magnitogorsk contains the largest iron and steel works in the country: Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. The official motto of the city is "the place where Europe and Asia meet", as the city occupies land in both Europe and Asia. Magnitogorsk is one of only two planned socialist realist settlements ever built (the other being Nowa Huta in Poland). History Foundation Magnitogorsk was founded in 1743 as part of the Orenburg Line of forts built during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth. By 1747 the settlement had grown large enough to justify the building of a small wooden chapel, later named "the Church of the Holy Trinity". Russian iron-ore mining in this region dates back to 1752, when two entrepreneurs named Tverdysh and Myasnikov decided to explore the feasibility of mining in the area. They took advantage of the fact that Mount Magnitnaya did not belong to anyone at that time; they secured it for themselves by way of petition to Empress Elizabeth. In 1759 the petition was accepted, and they launched iron-ore production. Growth The city underwent rapid change in the 1930s when, according to Stalin's Five-Year-Plans, Magnitogorsk was to become a one-industry town modeled after two of the most advanced steel-producing cities in the United States at that time: Gary, Indiana, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At this time, hundreds of foreign experts streamed in to implement and direct the work. In 1928 a Soviet delegation arrived in Cleveland, Ohio, to discuss with American consulting company Arthur G. McKee a plan to set up in Magnitogorsk a copy of the US Steel steel-mill in Gary. The contract was increased four times, and eventually the new plant had a capacity of over four million tons annually. It was a showpiece of Soviet achievement. Huge reserves of iron ore in the area made it a prime location to build a steel plant capable of challenging its Western rivals. However, a large proportion of the workforce, as ex-peasants, typically had few