Ryazhsk is a Russian town (since 1502), the administrative center of the Ryazhsk District in the Ryazan Region.

It is located in the northwest suburb of Oka-Don Plain, on the high and steep bank of River Hupta (in the basin of River Oka), 117 km to the southwest of Ryazan.

It is a railway junction.

The town takes the area of 962 sq km and its population makes 21 673 people (as of 2014).

History of Ryazhsk

It was first recorded as Ryassk in 1502. The settlement appeared in the north of the Ryassky Field as a fortified post. It defended and controlled the skid track connecting River Hupta (in the basin of Oka) and Stanovaya Ryassa (in the basin of Don). In the 16th -17th centuries it was named Ryassk, and Ryaskov. It was part of the border line that protected the Russian state from attacks of the Crimean Tatars and Nogais.

It was attributed to the Azov Province (the Voronezh Province from 1725) in 1708 and to the Tambov Province in 1719. In 1778 it became the district town of the Ryazan Province in 1796.

Fossil coal was found by the serf Ivan Palitsyn not far from the village of Petrovo near Ryazhsk and it laid the foundation for research and mastery of the future Moscow coal basin.

In 1856 the district town of Ryazhsk had 5 churches, 326 houses, and 69 shops.

Ryazhsk became an important railway junction at the crossroads of the Ryazan-Ural and Syzran-Vyazem railroads in the 1870s.

In 1906 Ryazhsk had 12 industrial enterprises, such as flour-grinding, brick, grain and other factories.

The Novoryazhsk settlement of railroad workers was attributed to the town in 1962.

Architecture and Sights

The Bolshaya Aleshnya Village located 9 km away from Ryazhsk has the Kikin-Yermolovs’ Estate (former ancestral lands of boyars Kikins) with the Nativity Church built in 1805.

35 km away from Ryazhsk there is Zaborovo (Spasskoye) Village, the former manor of General M. D. Skobelev, the hero of the Russian-Turkish War (1877-78). Skobelev and his parents were buried in Church of the Saviour (1764).