This one comes from the Global News Blog at Reuters:

Pushkin’s “Russian Uprising” was an 18th century peasant revolt focused on the Ural and Volga regions led by Yemelian Pugachev, a pretender to the throne of Tsarina Catherine the Great — a rebellion crushed with equal brutality. The memory of Pugachev is a distant one, but there are more recent events, less dramatic in scale that scar the Russian landscape.

One city name stands alone as a reminder to Russia’s leaders as they weigh the dangers of social unrest in the months ahead: Novocherkassk.

In June, 1962, workers at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Factory, furious about food shortages, wage cuts and dismal working conditions, declared a strike. Moscow, wary of any spread in the unrest, ordered tanks into the town. Crowds marched on the Communist Party headquarters to present their demands. Militants broke away and stormed the local militia headquarters. Rioting swept Novocherkassk, a city situated close to the historic heartland of the cossacks Pugachev drew on for his rebellion. Moscow ordered troops to act, and shots were fired into the crowd. Dozens, including women and children, were killed, their bodies buried secretly at night by the security services.