Voronezh Oblast.

History

The city of Voronezh grew out of a fortress founded in 1586. Between 1696 and 1711 local shipyards launched around 215 vessels, the beginnings of a regular navy that sailed against Azov. Among them was the Goto Predestinatsia, the first ship of the line built in Russia without foreign shipwrights. In 1942–43 the front line ran through Voronezh, and the city was liberated on 25 January 1943. The oblast in its present form dates from 13 June 1934.

Culture & traditions

Voronezh is linked with the poets Alexei Koltsov and Ivan Nikitin and the writers Ivan Bunin and Andrei Platonov; Osip Mandelstam lived here in exile in the 1930s. Since 2011 the city has hosted the international Platonov Arts Festival. Its stages include the Chamber Theatre, the Koltsov Drama Theatre, the Opera and Ballet Theatre and the Shut puppet theatre, and the Kramskoy Art Museum holds the main collection. Nobel physicist Pavel Cherenkov was born in the region.

Nature

The Don flows for about 530 km through the oblast, joined by the Voronezh, Khopyor and Bityug, and there are more than 700 lakes. The landscape is forest-steppe with chalk hills and black-earth soils. The Voronezh Nature Reserve, set up in 1923 to save the beaver, protects the Usman pine forest; it runs a beaver nursery and a nature museum and has been a biosphere reserve since 1985. At Divnogorye on the Don, chalk pillars known as 'divy' shelter more than 250 species of steppe and rock plants.

Sport

The region's leading football club is Fakel Voronezh, founded in 1947. The city also has the women's football club Energiya, the ice hockey club Buran and the women's volleyball club Voronezh. The main venues are the Central Trade Union Stadium and the Yubileyny Sports Palace.

Food & drink

This black-earth region is one of Russia's main farming areas, growing wheat, sugar beet, sunflowers, potatoes and vegetables. In 2014 it harvested more potatoes than any other Russian region and led the Central Federal District in milk production. Sugar has a long history here: an experimental station opened in Ramon in 1895 and later became the national research institute for sugar beet and sugar. Food processing is the largest sector of the local economy.

Practical information

Flights land at Voronezh International Airport north of the city; the railway to Moscow has run since 1868, and the M-4 Don highway crosses the region. The oblast is on Moscow time. The climate is temperate continental, with cool winters and warm, sometimes hot summers. May to October is the best time to visit, which is also when Divnogorye receives most of its visitors.

What to see

• Divnogorye — chalk pillars, cave churches and the Assumption Monastery above the Don.
• Kostenki — more than 60 Upper Palaeolithic sites up to 37,000 years old.
• Voronezh Nature Reserve — the Usman pine forest and its beaver nursery.
• Kramskoy Art Museum — Voronezh's main art collection.
• Ramon — Princess Oldenburg's castle and a historic centre of sugar-making.
• Platonov Festival — an annual celebration of theatre, music and literature.

Cities on the map

• Voronezh 1,014,610