Krivoy Rog is a city of around 700,000 in the southern Ukraine, southwest of Dnipropetrovsk, at the confluence of the Inhulets and Saksahan rivers. It is an industrial and metallurgical centre in a iron-mining region. The city extends for 32 km, paralleling the ore deposits. The city's environmental and construction safety is a growing problem due to abandoned mine cavities and polluted ore-processing wastes. At the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century the Cossack Cordon appeared at the confluence of the Ingultsa and Saksagan rivers. The confluence of the rivers was named Pochtovaya. The Cossacks from Zaporozhye rested on the way to Sech. Legend says that the owner of this settlement was a Cossack named Rog who had lost one eye in battle. That is why he was called Krivoy Rog in Zaporozhskaya Sech. Some more Cossacks settled around the Cossack Rog s house, and a village grew up gradually. The Cossacks gave a name to it - Krivoy Rog. In 1775 the Empress Catherine II reclassified Krivoy Rog as a town. Krivoy Rog began to grow really rapidly only when iron-ore reserves were found there. Aleksander Pol found them in the end of 19th century. The first steel tones were welded by the Mining Equipment Factory of the manufacturer Gdantsev. This process went on till the middle of 20th century.