VOLGA FEDERAL DISTRICT

Penza Oblast.

Penza Oblast lies in the Volga region, on land that was once the frontier steppe known as the Wild Field. Mikhail Lermontov spent his childhood here, and the historian Vasily Klyuchevsky and the avant-garde painter Aristarkh Lentulov came from the region. Expect quiet rivers, forest-steppe and literary estates.

Administrative centre: Penza
Population: 1,213,113 (2024)
Area: 43,200 km²
Time zone: UTC+3 · Moscow time

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History

Penza was founded in 1663 as a Russian fortress on the edge of the Wild Field, guarding the country's southern frontier. The region produced the historian Vasily Klyuchevsky and the painter Aristarkh Lentulov. Penza Oblast was carved out of Tambov Oblast on 4 February 1939. Today its capital is a major railway junction and a university city with six institutions of higher education.

Culture & traditions

Penza is associated with the critic Vissarion Belinsky, the writer Alexander Kuprin and the director Vsevolod Meyerhold, whose former house is now home to the Doctor Dapertutto Theatre. The main stage is the Lunacharsky Drama Theatre, alongside the Kukolny Dom puppet theatre and the philharmonic. The Savitsky Art Gallery sits beside the Myasnikov Museum of One Painting. At Tarkhany, where Lermontov grew up and is buried, a museum reserve has been open since 1939.

Nature

The oblast has more than 3,000 rivers and streams, the largest being the Sura, Moksha, Khopyor and Vorona. Forests cover about a fifth of the land; the rest is forest-steppe and fields. The Privolzhskaya Lesostep Nature Reserve, some 8,400 hectares, protects patches of steppe with more than 860 species of vascular plants.

Sport

Penza is a hockey town, home to the ice hockey club Dizel. It also has the football club Zenit, founded in 1918, the rugby club Lokomotiv, and hosts speedway racing. The gymnasts Denis Ablyazin and Natalia Lavrova are from Penza.

Food & drink

Penza Oblast is a notable grain producer, growing wheat, rye, oats, millet and buckwheat. Its rivers hold between 30 and 50 species of fish, and anglers especially prize pikeperch and wels catfish.

Practical information

Domestic flights serve Penza Airport. The city is a major railway junction and lies on the M-5 highway from Moscow towards the Urals. The region is on Moscow time. The climate is temperate continental, with long cold winters and warm summers. May to September is the best time to go, and the Lermontov festival takes place at Tarkhany on the first weekend of July.

What to see

Tarkhany — the estate where Lermontov grew up and is buried.
Myasnikov Museum of One Painting — an unusual museum built around a single canvas.
Savitsky Art Gallery — Penza's main art collection.
Sprygin Botanical Garden — plants from around the world in a garden founded in 1917.
First Settler monument — a tribute to the city's founders.