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Kaluga, Russia (Government)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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A government of middle Russia, surrounded by those of Moscow, Smolensk, Orel and Tula, with an area of 11,942 sq. m. Its surface is an undulating plain, reaching Boo to 900 ft. in its highest parts, which lie in the S.W., and deeply trenched by watercourses, especially in the N.E. The Oka, a main tributary of the Volga, and its confluents (the Zhizdra and Ugra) drain all but a strip of country in the west, which is traversed by the Bolva, an affluent of the Dnieper. The government is built up mainly of carboniferous deposits (coal-bearing), with patches of the soft Jurassic clays and limestones which formerly covered them. Cretaceous deposits occur in the S.W., and Devonian limestones and shales crop out in the S.E. The government is covered with a thick layer of boulder clay in the north, with vast ridges and fields of boulders brought during the Glacial Period from Finland and the government of Olonets; large areas in the middle are strewn with flint boulders and patches of loess are seen farther south. The mean annual temperature is 41° F. Iron ores are the chief mineral wealth, nearly 40,000 persons being engaged in mining. Beds of coal occur in several places, and some of them are worked. Fireclay, china-clay, chalk, grindstone, pure quartz sand, phosphorite and copper are also extracted. Forests cover 20% of the surface, and occur chiefly in the south. The soil is not very suitable for agriculture, and owing to a rather dense population, considerable numbers of the inhabitants find occupation in industry, or as carriers and carpenters for one-half of the year at the Black Sea ports.

The population (1,025,705 in 1860) was 1,176,353 in 1897, nearly all Great Russians. There were 116 women to loo men, and out of the total population 94,853 lived in towns. The estimated population in 1906 was 1,287,300. Of the total area over 4,000,000 acres are owned by the peasant communities, nearly 3,000,000 acres by private owners and some 250,000 by the Crown. The principal crops are rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, and potatoes. Hemp is grown for local use and export. Bees are kept. The chief non-agricultural industries are distilleries, iron-works, factories for cloth, cottons, paper, matches, leather and china, flour-mills and oil works. Large quantities of wooden wares are fabricated in the villages of the south. A considerable trade is carried on in hemp, hempseed and hempseed oil, corn and hides; and iron, machinery, leather, glass, chemicals and linen are exported. The government is divided into II districts, the chief towns of which, with their populations in 1897, are: Kaluga (49,728), Borovsk (8407), Kozelsk (5908), Likhvin (1 776 ), Maloyaroslavets (2500), Medyn (4392), Meshchovsk (3667), Mosalsk (2652), Peremyshl (3956), Tarusa (1989) and Zhizdra (5996). (P. A. K.; J. T. BE.)