Olonez
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List of cities in Russia |
Olonez ( Russian Олонец ; olonetzisch and Karelian Anuksenlinnu or anus ; Finnish Aunus ; Swedish Olonets ) is a small town with 9056 inhabitants (as of October 14, 2010) in the extreme south of the to Russia belonging to the Republic of Karelia . It is located at the confluence of the Megrega and Lake Ladoga tributary Olonka and is the center of a fertile agricultural district east of Lake Ladoga. It is also the administrative center of a Rajon of the same name . The distance to Saint Petersburg is 310 km, to Petrozavodsk 150 km and to the Finnish border 220 km.
More than 60 percent of the city's residents are Karelians , but like almost everywhere else in the republic, predominantly Russian-speaking.
The Olonez Rajon (3988 km², 26,300 inhabitants) consists of 90 percent of dense coniferous forests and swamps, so forestry is the most important branch of the economy. The area is rich in various natural resources such as peat , gravel and umber . Livestock and fur farming are also important sources of income.
history
Olonez was first mentioned in writing as early as 1137, making it one of the oldest documented settlements in northern Russia.
The city was fortified against Sweden in 1649 as the most northwestern outpost of Russia and received city rights from Tsar Alexei I in the same year . In the 18th century, however, the fortress of Olonez lost its importance with the shifting of the Russian-Swedish border to the west and became in the Finally demolished in the middle of the 18th century.
It was only thanks to the up-and-coming and rapidly growing new capital Saint Petersburg that Olonez was able to at least maintain its importance as a trading location. In 1784, however, the still young city of Petrozavodsk , northeast of Olonez, became the capital and trading center of the Olonez governorate, founded in 1773 . Until the October Revolution , Olonez remained a small provincial town. In 1912 it had 2,058 inhabitants.
With Finland's declaration of independence in 1917, West Karelia came under Finnish sovereignty, but East Karelia with Olonez remained Soviet Russian. Finnish White Guards then tried to incorporate East Karelia into their territory. Olonez was the scene of bloody fighting during the brief Finnish occupation in 1919, but ultimately the so-called Aunus campaign by Finland was in vain.
In 1940, as part of the cession of Finland to the Soviet Union after the Winter War (1939-40), the Karelo-Finnish SSR was founded, to which Olonez belonged until it was occupied by Finnish troops the following year in the course of the Continuation War (1941-44) has been. On June 25, 1944, the city was retaken by the Red Army and Olonez was again part of the Karelo-Finnish SSR until its dissolution in 1956. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Olonez belonged to the Autonomous SSR Karelia within the RSFSR . Since 1991 the city has been subordinate to the Republic of Karelia within the Russian Federation .
Population development
year | Residents |
---|---|
1897 | 1,246 |
1926 | 1,766 |
1939 | 2,668 |
1959 | 5,009 |
1970 | 7,756 |
1979 | 10,404 |
1989 | 11,888 |
2002 | 10,240 |
2010 | 9,056 |
Note: census data
sons and daughters of the town
- Johann Friedrich Blank (1708–1745), architect
- Witold Pilecki (1901–1948), Polish soldier and resistance fighter
- Sergei Seljanow (* 1955), film director
Web links
- Olonez . mojgorod.ru (Russian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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)