Capital of Chechnya and of the former Russian republic of Checheno-Ingush; est) 10,000. Situated on the Sunzha River, it was founded 1818 as a Cossack fortress. Large-scale oil production began 1893 and it became a major oil center with pipelines to the Caspian Sea at Makhachkala and the Black Sea at Tuapse. Half its residential areas were damaged beyond repair and its infrastructure destroyed by Russian bombing 1994–95.