Astrakhan Oblast
Encyclopedia
Astrakhan Oblast is a federal subject
Federal subjects of Russia
Russia is a federation which, since March 1, 2008, consists of 83 federal subjects . In 1993, when the Constitution was adopted, there were 89 federal subjects listed...

 of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 (an oblast
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...

). Its administrative center is the city of Astrakhan
Astrakhan
Astrakhan is a major city in southern European Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on the left bank of the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea at an altitude of below the sea level. Population:...

.

Demographics

Population:

Ethnic groups
According to the 2002 Census
Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...

 the ethnic composition was • Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 69.69% • Kazakh
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

 14.21% • Tatar
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

 7.02% • Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 1.25% • Chechen 1.00% • Azeri
Azeris in Russia
Aside from the large Azeri community native to Russia's Dagestan Republic, the majority of Azeris in Russia are fairly recent immigrants. Azeris started settling in Russia around the late 19th century, but their migration became intensive after World War II. It rapidly increased with the collapse...

 0.82% • Kalmyk
Kalmyk people
Kalmyk people is the name given to the Oirats, western Mongols in Russia, whose descendants migrated from Dzhungaria in 1607. Today they form a majority in the autonomous Republic of Kalmykia on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. Kalmykia is Europe's only Buddhist government...

 0.71% • Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

 0.63% • Nogay 0.45% • Roma 0.43% • Avar
Caucasian Avars
Avars or Caucasian Avars are a modern people of Caucasus, mainly of Dagestan, in which they are the predominant group. The Caucasian Avar language belongs to the Northeast Caucasian language family ....

 0.42% • Lezgin
Lezgins
The Lezgians are an ethnic group living predominantly in southern Dagestan and northeastern Azerbaijan and who speak the Lezgian language.- Historical concept :While ancient Greek historians, including Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder, referred...

 0.36% • Dargin 0.35% • Belarusians
Belarusians
Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...

 0.26% • Turkmen
Turkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...

 0.21% • Korean
Koryo-saram
Koryo-saram is the name which ethnic Koreans in the post-Soviet states use to refer to themselves. Approximately 500,000 ethnic Koreans reside in the former Soviet Union, primarily in the now-independent states of Central Asia. There are also large Korean communities in southern Russia , the...

 0.21% • Astrakhan Tatar  0.20% • German
Ethnic German
Ethnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...

 0.14% • Kumyks
Kumyks
Kumyks are a Turkic people occupying the Kumyk plateau in north Dagestan and south Terek, and the lands bordering the Caspian Sea. They comprise 14% of the population of the Russian republic of Dagestan. They speak the Kumyk language...

 0.14% • Georgian
Georgians
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....

 0.12% • Chuvash
Chuvash people
The Chuvash people are a Turkic ethnic group, native to an area stretching from the Volga Region to Siberia. Most of them live in Republic of Chuvashia and surrounding areas, although Chuvash communities may be found throughout all Russia.- Etymology :...

 0.12% • Turkish
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...

 0.11% • Uzbek
Uzbeks
The Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, and large populations can also be found in Afghanistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China...

 0.10% • Jewish
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 0.10% • Mordvin 0.09% • Tabasaran
Tabasaran people
The Tabasarans are an ethnic group who live mostly in Dagestan, Russia. Their population in Russia is about 200,000. They speak the Tabasaran language. They are mainly Sunni Muslims. Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva is half Tabasaran....

 0.08% • with many other groups of less than eight hundred persons each. • An additional 0.29% of residents declined to state their ethnicity on the census questionnaire.

History

Astrakhan Governorate (guberniya
Guberniya
A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...

) of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 was created in 22th of the Nowember 1717 year by Peter the Great. It was on the southwestern frontier of the empire and was known as Astrakhan krai
Krai
Krai or kray was a type of an administrative division in the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR, and is one of the types of the federal subjects of modern Russia ....

.

As of 1917, it bordered Saratov, Samara, and Stavropol Governorates, Don Cossack Voisko, Ural Cossack Host
Ural Cossack Host
The Ural Cossack Host was a cossack host formed from the Ural Cossacks -- those cossacks settled by the Ural River. Their alternative name, Yaik Cossacks, comes from the old name of the river.- History :...

, Terek Oblast, and the Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...

. It included the Kalmyk steppe
Kalmyk Steppe
Kalmuk Steppe, or Kalmyk Steppe is a steppe of approximately 100,000 km², bordering the northwest Caspian Sea, bounded by the Volga on the N.E., the Manych on the S.W. and the territory of the Don Cossacks on the N.W...

 and Kyrgyz steppe.

Since 1919 the geography of the guberniya/oblast has been changed many times. It assumed its present form in 1957.

Sources

  • "Astrakhan Oblast. A Reference on Administrative-Territorial Subdivision, 1918-1983", Volgograd
    Volgograd
    Volgograd , formerly called Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River...

    , 1984, in Russian. ("Астраханская область. Справочник по административно-территориальному делению, 1918-1983 гг." Волгоград: Ниж.-Волж. кн. изд-во, 1984. – 336 с.)

External links

Official website of Astrakhan Oblast The Book of Memory of Victims of Political Represions of Astrakhan Oblast, a list of 10,955 names repressed in Astrakhan Oblast in 1918-1986.
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