January 14 marks the birthday of the Moscow Region. RIA Novosti presents 8 interesting facts about the milestones in the region's history and the sights of the Moscow Region.
1. Moscow Region is the leader among Russian regions and republics in terms of population
Photo - © Anton Chernov, "Moscow Region Today"
Moscow Oblast is part of the Central Federal District, and its population exceeds all other federal subjects except the capital. Currently, more than 8.5 million people live in Moscow. Only Moscow has more (about 13 million). Moscow Oblast consists of 57 urban districts (mostly former districts merged with district centers).
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2. People have lived in the Moscow region for thailand mobile database many thousands of years.
Photo - © Press Service of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Moscow Region
The oldest evidence that people lived in the Moscow region in ancient times is the Zaraysk site, an archaeological monument of the Upper Paleolithic. The earliest evidence of ancient people living in the area of today's Zaraysk Kremlin dates back to the 21st millennium BC. The tribes that lived in these places built settlements that can now be identified by hearths and storage pits. Judging by the results of excavations, primitive people huddled in narrow and long semi-dugouts covered with mammoth tusks and skins. They knew how to carve ivory figurines and create various tools from flint, and they obtained food by fishing, hunting and gathering.
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3. The Slavs did not always live in the lands of the Moscow region
Dmitry Postnikov
Photo - © Dmitry Postnikov
In the 1st millennium AD, the territory of the Moscow region was inhabited mainly by Finno-Ugric peoples. The Slavic tribes of the Vyatichi and Krivichi began to gradually settle the central part of the East European Plain from the 4th to 8th centuries, but several more centuries passed before the Slavs became the predominant people in these places.
One of the first cities of the future Moscow region, according to historians, was Volokolamsk (mentioned since 1135). Not much younger were Zvenigorod (1152), Dmitrov (1154) and Kolomna (1177). Moscow was founded around the same time – it was first mentioned in 1147.