Initially called Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky, the city, located 196 km southeast of Moscow, served as a frontier outpost for the Murom-Ryazan principality and successfully protected Russian territories from numerous nomadic attacks over the years.

Ryazan served as an important industrial centre after the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, and the main fields to develop were machine-building and mechanical engineering. The biggest plants of the city are a machine-tool works, potato harvesting works, radio works, oil-processing plant and chemical works.

The ancient core of Ryazan, the Kremlin, was founded in 1095 and stands at the northern edge of the city. There are three cathedrals in the Kremlin – the Cathedral of the assumption (1693-99 by architect Bukhvostov, baroque, total height 60 metres), the Cathedral of Jesus Christ’s birth (15th century, rebuilt in 1826 in keeping with classicism) and Arkhangelsk cathedral (16th century, overbuilt in 1647).

To the south-west from the Kremlin the main squares of the city are situated – Soviet (former cathedral) square and Lenin square.

Ryazan is a home city for many Russian scientists and writers, among them Pavlov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Tsyolkovsky, Michurin.

Modern Ryazan is gradually changing into a nice clean city with smartly cut trees, good roads and flower beds. Here a traditional Russian habit of crossing grass areas, where it is not allowed, and forming new paths has no point, as long fence along the roads doesn’t let anyone do this.

Like almost all Russian cities dating some centuries back, Ryazan can show you ancient monuments and unique places keeping memory of the past days, but, unfortunately, it is just a part of the city, the rest resembles numerous Russian towns in architecture and streets - this is the heritage of the Soviet times.