Koselsk

city Koselsk Козельск flag coat of arms Federal district Central Russia Oblast Kaluga Rajon Koselsk Founded 1146 City since 1776 surface 10  km² population 18,245 inhabitants (as of Oct. 14, 2010) Population density 1825 inhabitants / km² Height of the center 150  m Time zone UTC + 3 Telephone code +7 (48442) Post Code 249720 License Plate 40 OKATO 29 216 501 Geographical location Coordinates 54 ° 2 '  N , 35 ° 47'  E Coordinates: 54 ° 2 '0 "  N , 35 ° 47' 0"  E

Location in the western part of Russia

Location in Kaluga Oblast

List of cities in Russia

Koselsk ( Russian Козельск ) is a city in Kaluga Oblast ( Russia ) with 18,245 inhabitants (as of October 14, 2010).

geography

The defense of Koselsk 1238 on a 16th century miniature

The city is located about 70 km southwest of the Oblast capital Kaluga on the left bank of the Schisdra , a left tributary of the Oka, which flows into the Volga .

Koselsk is the administrative center of the raion of the same name .

history

The place was founded on the site of an old Vyatich settlement and was first mentioned in 1146 as Koslesk and 1154 as Koselesk . In 1238 the city fiercely defended itself against Batu Khan's troops for seven weeks before it was captured and destroyed.

In the second half of the 14th century and from 1445 to 1494 Koselsk belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , from 1494 to the Grand Duchy of Moscow . The city's heyday was in the 16th and 17th centuries; Until the 19th century, the most important trade route between central Russia and Ukraine ran through the city.

In 1776 the modern town charter was granted as the administrative center of a district (Ujesds).

During the Second World War , Koselsk was occupied by the German Wehrmacht on October 8, 1941 and recaptured on December 28, 1941 by the Western Front of the Red Army as part of the Kaluga operation .

Population development

year	Residents
1897	5,619
1926	4,200
1939	8,182
1959	12.114
1970	13,026
1979	19,789
1989	19,735
2002	19,907
2010	18,245

Note: census data (1926 rounded)

Culture and sights

Church of the Annunciation with a bell tower

In the city, the cathedral from 1777, the Church of the Annunciation ( Благовещенская церковь / Blagoweschenskaja zerkow) from 1810 and a number of stone merchant houses from the 19th century have been preserved.

Three kilometers from Koselsk, on the opposite, right bank of the Schisdra, is the Russian Orthodox monastery Optina Pustyn , named after the robber Opta , who, according to tradition , founded a hermitage here in the 15th century as Makarios (Russian Makari ) . Under its official name Heiliges-Mariä-Tempeleinnahm-Kloster ( Свято-Введенский монастырь / Swjato-Vwedenski monastyr) the former hermitage experienced an upswing towards the end of the 18th century and developed into one of the most important religious-philosophical and - cultural centers of Russia. After the October Revolution of 1917, the monastery was closed, returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1987 and reopened.

On the territory of the monastery which are Mary Temple feeder Cathedral ( Введенский собор / Vvedensky Sobor) 1750-1771, the Church of the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan , shortly Kazan Church ( Казанская церковь / Kazanskaya Tserkov) 1805-1811, the church the Mary of Egypt ( церковь Марии Египетской / Zerkow Marii Jegipetskoi) of 1858, the 40-meter-high bell tower of the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir , shortly Vladimir bell tower ( Владимирская колокольня / Vladimirskaya kolokolnja) 1801-1804 and the wooden church of John the Baptist ( церковь Иоанна Предтечи / zerkow Ioanna Predtetschi) from 1822.

A number of important Russian writers, such as Nikolai Gogol , Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Lev Tolstoy, were guests in the preserved residential buildings from the 19th century . Impressions of their visits to Optina Pustyn and of the monks they met here can be found in their works, for example the character of Starzen Sossima in Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov (1878–1880) based on the monk Amwrossi (1812–1891; 1987 as Ambrosius von Optina , Russian Amwrossi Optinski canonized) or Tolstoy Powest's father Sergius (1899).

Koselsk has a local museum with a focus on the history of the Optina pustyn monastery and the forest museum "Lesnyje istoki" .

15 km south is located in the village Wolkonskoje the former country home of the royal family Wolkonski.

Economy and Infrastructure

In Koselsk there is a plant for automobile body parts as well as factories for building materials and the food industry.

The city is located on the Smolensk - Sukhinichi - Chaplygin railway line opened in 1899 (eastern section has been out of service since the 1990s), from which a line to Tula, opened in 1941, branches off to the east of the city .

The regional road R94 from Peremyschl leads to Koselsk (there connection to the R92 to Kaluga).

sons and daughters of the town

• Wassili Panow (1906–1973), Russian chess player, theorist, author and journalist
• Tatjana Schewzowa (* 1969), Russian politician

Web links

Commons : Koselsk  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Unofficial city and Rajon portal (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Itogi Vserossijskoj perepisi naselenija 2010 goda. Tom 1. Čislennostʹ i razmeščenie naselenija (Results of the All-Russian Census 2010. Volume 1. Number and distribution of the population). Tables 5 , pp. 12-209; 11 , pp. 312–979 (download from the website of the Federal Service for State Statistics of the Russian Federation)