Tula Oblast () is a

federal subject The federal subjects of Russia, also referred to as the subjects of the Russian Federation () or simply as the subjects of the federation (), are the administrative division, constituent entities of Russia, its top-level political division ...

(an

oblast An oblast ( or ) is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term ''oblast'' is often translated i ...

) of

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It is geographically located in

European Russia European Russia is the western and most populated part of the Russia, Russian Federation. It is geographically situated in Europe, as opposed to the country's sparsely populated and vastly larger eastern part, Siberia, which is situated in Asia ...

and is administratively part of the

Central Federal District The Central Federal District ( rus, Центральный федеральный округ, p=tsɨnˈtralʲnɨj fʲɪdʲɪˈralʲnɨj ˈokrʊk) is one of the federal districts of Russia, eight federal districts of Russia. Geographically, the di ...

, covering an area of . It has a population of Tula is the largest

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

and the

administrative center An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located. In countries with French as the administrative language, such as Belgiu ...

of the oblast. Tula Oblast borders

Moscow Oblast Moscow Oblast (, , informally known as , ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). With a population of 8,524,665 (Russian Census (2021), 2021 Census) living in an area of , it is one of the most densely populate ...

in the north,

Ryazan Ryazan (, ; also Riazan) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. The city is located on the banks of the Oka River in Central Russia, southeast of Moscow. As of the 2010 C ...

in the east,

Lipetsk Lipetsk (, ), also Romanization of Russian, romanized as Lipeck, is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Lipetsk Oblast, Russia, located on the banks of the Voronezh (river), Voronezh River in the Do ...

in the southeast,

Oryol Oryol ( rus, Орёл, , ɐˈrʲɵl, a=ru-Орёл.ogg, links=y, ), also transliterated as Orel or Oriol, is a Classification of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast, Russia, situated on the Oka Rive ...

in the southwest, and

Kaluga Kaluga (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia. It stands on the Oka River southwest of Moscow. Its population was 337,058 at the 2021 census. Kaluga's most famous residen ...

in the west. Tula Oblast is one of the most developed and urbanized territories in Russia, and the majority of the territory forms the Tula- Novomoskovsk Agglomeration, an

urban area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

with a population of over 1 million.

History

The Tula Oblast area has been inhabited since the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended b ...

, as shown by the discoveries of burial mounds ( kurgans) and old settlements. By the eighth century, these lands were occupied by the

Vyatichi The Vyatichs or more properly Vyatichi or Viatichi () were a tribe of Early East Slavs who inhabited regions around the Oka River, Oka, Moskva River, Moskva and Don (river), Don rivers. The Vyatichi had for a long time no princes, but the soci ...

, an East Slavic tribe who cultivated the land, traded, and worked at crafts, confirmed by records in property registers which mention an "ancient settlement" located at the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...

of the Upa River and Tulitsa River. The first mention of the city of Tula in 1146 is found in the

Nikon Chronicle The ''Nikon Chronicle'' () is a compilation of Russian chronicles undertaken at the court of Ivan the Terrible in the mid-16th century. The compilation was named after Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, who owned a copy. In the 18th century, it was publi ...

, in reference to the campaign of Prince Svyatoslav Olgovich of Chernigov. At the time the lands belonged to the Ryazan Principality, and Prince Sviatoslav passed through a number of settlements, including Tula, while heading for

Geography

Tula Oblast is located in Russia's

and borders

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, and

Kaluga Oblast Kaluga Oblast () is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Kaluga. The Russian Census (2021), 2021 Russian Census found a population o ...

Rivers

Tula Oblast contains more than 1,600 rivers and streams. Major rivers include: * Don River * Oka River * Upa River

Natural resources

The oblast is rich in

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

, and deposits of

lignite Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered the lowest ...

(coal). The lignite deposit is part of the Moscow coal basin.

Climate

Tula Oblast has a moderate

continental climate Continental climates often have a significant annual variation in temperature (warm to hot summers and cold winters). They tend to occur in central and eastern parts of the three northern-tier continents (North America, Europe, and Asia), typi ...

, with warm summers and cold winters. Average January temperature is in the north and in the south. Average July temperature is about to . Annual precipitation is in the southeast and in the northwest.

Politics

During the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

period, the high authority in the oblast was shared between three persons: The first secretary of the Tula CPSU Committee (who in reality had the biggest authority), the chairman of the oblast Soviet (legislative power), and the Chairman of the oblast Executive Committee (executive power). Since 1991, CPSU lost all the power, and the head of the Oblast administration, and eventually the governor was appointed/elected alongside elected regional parliament. The Charter of Tula Oblast is the fundamental law of the region. The Tula Oblast Duma is the province's standing legislative (representative) body. The Oblast Duma exercises its authority by passing laws, resolutions, and other legal acts and by supervising the implementation and observance of the laws and other legal acts passed by it. The highest executive body is the Oblast Government, which includes territorial executive bodies such as district administrations, committees, and commissions that facilitate development and run the day to day matters of the province. The Oblast administration supports the activities of the Governor who is the highest official and acts as guarantor of the observance of the oblast Charter in accordance with the

Constitution of Russia The Constitution of the Russian Federation () was adopted by national referendum on 12 December 1993 and enacted on 25 December 1993. The latest significant reform occurred in 2020, marked by extensive amendments that altered various sections ...

Local government

Representative bodies of urban and rural settlements and urban districts consist of deputies elected in municipal elections. The representative body of the municipal district consists of the heads of settlements that are part of the municipal district, and of deputies of the representative bodies of these settlements, elected by the representative bodies of the settlements from among their members in accordance with the same norm of representation, regardless of the population of the settlement. The term of office of representative bodies of cities, rural settlements, city districts, and municipal districts is 5 years, with some exceptions when the term is 3 years. Local government bodies in the Tula Oblast are headed by 103 heads of municipalities and 84 heads of municipal administrations. In accordance with the regional law of 2017, village elders carry out activities to organize interaction between local government bodies and residents of rural settlements when resolving issues of local importance. As of 1 November 2022, 1,071 village elders operate in 23 municipal districts and urban districts. Their powers extend to the territory of more than 1,700 settlements, home to about 160,000 inhabitants. In the Tula Oblast, regional branches of dozens of political parties are registered, the largest in terms of membership being United Russia, the

Communist Party of the Russian Federation The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF; ) is a communist political party in Russia that officially adheres to Marxist–Leninist philosophy. It is the second-largest political party in Russia after United Russia. The youth o ...

(CPRF), the

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia LDPR – Liberal Democratic Party of Russia () is a Russian Ultranationalism, ultranationalist and Right-wing populism, right-wing populist List of political parties in Russia, political party. It succeeded the Liberal Democratic Party of the ...

(LDPR), Patriots of Russia, the Party of Growth, A Just Russia – For Truth, Yabloko, and the Party of Pensioners of Russia. Since 2011, the "People's Budget" project has been implemented in the Tula Oblast, aimed at identifying and solving socially significant problems in the territories of the region’s municipalities. Project activities are financed from the budget of the Tula Oblast, the budgets of municipalities, and personal funds of residents and sponsors. The target orientation of the "People's Budget" project is to enhance the participation of residents of the Tula Oblast in solving local problems, creating comfortable living conditions, and supporting the initiatives of residents. In 2022, an annual survey of the population was conducted in the Tula Oblast on the effectiveness of the activities of heads of local government bodies and enterprises operating at the regional and municipal levels, in which 20,141 people participated. Efficiency assessment was carried out according to the following criteria: population satisfaction with the organization of transport services and the quality of roads, housing, and communal services. The overall percentage of satisfaction in municipal areas and urban districts was 88.13% (2020 - 81.01%, 2021 - 83.14%). The highest overall satisfaction rate in the municipalities is Kamensky District - 99.75, Tyoplo-Ogaryovsky District - 99.65%, Chernsky District - 99.12%, Donskoy city - 98.86%. Low satisfaction rates were noted in the municipalities of Kireyevsky District - 73.15%, Zaoksky District - 76.34%, Shchyokinsky District - 77.19%, Tula Urban Okrug - 77.29%, Aleksin city - 77.63%.

Administrative divisions

Demographics

Population:

Settlements

Vital statistics for 2024: *Births: 8,851 (6.0 per 1,000) *Deaths: 22,324 (15.2 per 1,000) Total fertility rate (2024):
1.14 children per woman Life expectancy (2021):
Total — 68.97 years (male — 64.05, female — 73.85) Ethnic composition (2010): *

Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...

- 95.3% *

Ukrainians Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...

- 1% *

Armenians Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...

- 0.6% *

Tatars Tatars ( )Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...

- 0.5% * Azeris - 0.4% *

Romani people {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...

- 0.3% *

Belarusians Belarusians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Belarus. They natively speak Belarusian language, Belarusian, an East Slavic language. More than 9 million people proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide. Nearly 7.99&n ...

- 0.2% *

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

- 0.2% *Others - 1.5% *19,778 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity. It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group.

Religion

According to a 2012 survey 62% of the population of Tula Oblast adheres to the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

, 2% are unaffiliated generic

Christians A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words '' Christ'' and ''C ...

, 1% are

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

s. In addition, 19% of the population declares to be "spiritual but not religious", 13% is

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

, and 3% follows other religions or did not give an answer to the question.

Economy

Tula Oblast is part of the Central economic region. It is a prominent industrial center with

metalworking Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals in order to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term, it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on e ...

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

, coalmining, and chemical industries. Major industrial cities include Novomoskovsk and Aleksin. Historical industries, such as

firearm A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originate ...

, samovar, and

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

manufacturing, still play an important role in the region. The oblast also has a developed agricultural sector, which ranks 33rd in Russia in agricultural production. The sector includes farming

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and ...

(

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

and rye),

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

es,

sugar beet A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together with ...

s, and vegetable growing,

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

raising, and dairying.

Culture

Tula YasnayaPolyana asv2019-09 img11 LNTolstoy House

Tula Oblast has more than 100 museums. Several are located in the administrative center of the oblast, the city of Tula, notably the ''Tula State Arms Museum'', the ''Tula Kremlin'', and the ''Tula Samovar Museum''. Another important cultural tourist attractions is the home and country estate of

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

Yasnaya Polyana Yasnaya Polyana ( rus, Я́сная Поля́на, p=ˈjasnəjə pɐˈlʲanə, ) is a writer's house museum, the former home of the writer Leo Tolstoy.#Bartlett, Bartlett, p. 25 It is southwest of Tula, Russia, Tula, Russia, and from Moscow. ...

, located outside of the city of Tula. The oblast also has four professional theaters, a

philharmonic An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, a ...

orchestra, and a

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...

References

External links

Official website of the Museum-Estate of Leo Tolstoy "Yasnaya Polyana"
{{Authority control States and territories established in 1937 1937 establishments in the Soviet Union