Tolyatti or Togliatti (/tɒlˈjɑːti/ tol-YAH-tee, US also /toʊlˈ-/ tohl-; Russian: Тольятти, IPA: [tɐlʲˈjætʲ(ː)ɪ]), known before 1964 as Stavropol,[a] is a city in Samara Oblast, Russia.

In 1964, the city was chosen as the location of the new VAZ automobile plant: a joint venture between Fiat and the Soviet government.

It was then renamed Tolyatti after Palmiro Togliatti, the longest-serving secretary of the Italian Communist Party, who had been instrumental in setting up the venture with Fiat.

[3] For the administrative purposes, the city is divided into three districts: The city's main claim to fame has been automobiles Lada (Zhiguli) manufactured by AvtoVAZ car plant employing some 110,000 people: in cooperation with Italy's Fiat since 1970, with General Motors since 2001[17] and with the Renault-Nissan Alliance since 2012, and once again becoming an independent, state-owned enterprise in 2022.

by Sergei Makhlai) and "KuibyshevAzot" (a nitrogen fertilizer manufacturer and Russia's biggest caprolactam and polyamide producer).

[citation needed] In 2011 the Tolyatti Special Economic Zone was launched in order to develop the region further and diversify the economy of the city.

Several auto-component producers (German Mubea and Japanese Sanoh among them) have since been registered, as well as large industrial manufacturers (Praxair and Edscha).

The city has high-quality sports facilities: gymnasiums, swimming pools, ice arenas, association football and racing stadiums — as a result, many athletes, including Olympic Champion Alexei Nemov, Stanley Cup winners Alexei Kovalev and Ilya Bryzgalov had moved to Tolyatti.

Tolyatti's Lada-sponsored Ice Hockey Club broke the Moscow teams' domination of the game.

Men's football (FC Lada Togliatti), basketball and handball teams also take part in national championships.

As for the traditional national sport of Russia, bandy, there is a team founded in 2013, TOAZ,[20] which however only takes part in a recreational league.

During the morning rush hour of 31 October 2007, a bomb exploded on a passenger bus in the city, killing at least eight people and injuring about 50 in what Irina Doroshenko, a spokeswoman for the investigative wing of the local prosecutor's office, said could be a terrorist attack.

[citation needed] However, the officials later named a 21-year-old Evgeny Vakhrushev, who also died in the blast, as the only person to be responsible for the tragedy.

[35] The city's mayor in 2000–2007, Nikolay Utkin [ru], was sentenced to seven years in prison on corruption charges.

[39] On March 4, 2021, Igor Ladyka was appointed acting mayor of the Togliatti city district, in connection with the resignation of Sergei Antashev.