Voronezh is an ancient Russian provincial city set in pleasant surroundings on the banks of the Voronezh River. The region and city are fondly remembered by most Russians as it has extremely interesting folkloric history.

Four hundred years ago a multitowered fortress, walled in by an oaken palisade, rose on the steep right bank of the river. This fortress was the beginning of the city of Voronezh.

Young Tsar Peter the Great enjoined that "great ship-building work" be started on the banks of the river. More than 200 galleons branders and galleys came out of the Voronezh docks, the cradle of Russia's first flotillas. The region is extremely rich with talented poets, writers and literary workers. The singing verses of A. Koltsov, the moving poetry of I. Nikitin, paintings by I Kramskoi, tales collected by A.Afanasyev and folk songs picked up by M.Pyatnitsky are part of the national cultural heritage.

The territory of the Voronezh Region is larger than that of such European countries as Denmark (43 098 km ²), the Netherlands (41 526 km ²), Switzerland (41 284 km ²), and Belgium (32 545 km ²).

History of Voronezh Region

The most ancient people appeared here in the late paleolith age (35 — 12 thousand years BC). The first settlements of Cro-Magnon people in the Voronezh Region were there on River Don area, near present-day Kostyonka Village, and near Voronezh, by the villages of Aleksandrovka and Borscheva in the Old Stone Age.

• Near Mastishche farm in the Ostrogozhsky District there is a Bronze Age monument — a stone labyrinth. The Mastishche Labyrinth is the first known megalytic construction in the midland of Russia.

• In the 7th-3rd centuries B.C. Scythian tribes inhabited the steppes of Nizhny Don. They also occupied the southern part of the modern Voronezh Region.

• Early man sites of Bronze Age have been discovered in the city of Voronezh (Levoberezhny District), near Somovo Station, in Liski, Kostenki, Maslovka, and other places.

• In the 4th century the Huns passed through the Don steppes from the East to the West.

• In the 7th century the steppe area of the Voronezh Region was a part of the Khazar Khaganate (Empire).

• In the 7th century a Slavic population appeared in Voronezh and Central Don lands.

• In the 8th century the Pechenegs came there and the Polovtsy (Cumans) settled there in the mid 11th century.

• In the period of feudal dissociation the lands of the region were part of the Ryazan and Chernigov Principalities.

• The first battle between forces of the Russian princes Igor of Ryazan and Oleg of Murom and soldiers of Baty-Khan took place in Voronezh lands in 1237.

Under the influence of Peasant War (1773 — 1775) a new administrative reform establishing the post of vicegerent was started in Russia in 1775. He was given emergency powers and submitted only to the empress. The Voronezh Vicegerency was founded in 1779. In 1782 — 1783 Vasily Alekseevich Tchertkov was appointed the vicegerent of Voronezh and Kharkov lands.

• In days of Great Purge (Yezhovshina) an NKVD troika was acting in the Voronezh Region from August, 1937 to November, 1938.

• On October 9, 2008 the Monument to Victims was set up on the place of mass executions in 1937 — 1938 near Dubovka.

• The Voronezh Region strongly suffered during forest fires caused by abnormal heat in summer 2010.

Sightseeing in Voronezh Region

The Voronezh Region has a considerable recreational and tourist potential, which has not been fully implemented. Besides pine forests and oak groves, which are well-known for their favorable impact on man’s health, the valley of River Voronezh harbours the historical and cultural monument Divnogorye. It is a unique Orthodox Christian church hollowed by Russian monks in the thickness of a huge cretaceous mountain on the banks of Tikhaya Sosna River in Liskinsky District. In the region there are a few dozens of underground constructions dug out in chalk mainly for public worship. Since cave digging was under a ban, most of the vaults were abandoned and were investigated as caves with speleology and spelistologiya methods. In addition to that the region has a variety of summer and winter tourist camps, sanatoria, wildlife areas and reserves.

Photo: tonkosti.ru