Kotlas is a city in Arkhangelsk Oblast. It is known as Котлас in Russian and was incorporated in 1917. It is located where the Rivers Dvina and Vychegda join. As such, it is the site of an important river port and shipyard.
It is a major paper-making center, with the largest paper mill in Russia. It also has an large timber logging industry, with many forested areas surrounding it. Besides a timber industry paper, logs, pulping etc., Kotlas also manufactures shirts, furniture, bricks and electromechanical items.
Kotlas had a Gulag labour camp in the 1930s - 1950s, inhabited by deported kulaks and other politically oppressed persons in Russia. Such people were put to work in the timber and paper industry. The Kotlas chapter of the "Sovest" organization keeps alive the memory of the people who suffered under the labour camps here.
The railway in Kotlas is a major rail junction; it connects central Russia with the Komi Republic.
Many persons of Polish descent live here.
There is an airbase in Kotlas Savatiya.
