Kozelsk

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

Geography

The city is located about 70 km southwest of Kaluga Oblasthauptstadt on the left bank of the Schisdra, a left tributary of the opening into the Volga River Oka.

Kozelsk is the administrative center of the homonymous Rajons.

History

The town was founded in place of an old Wjatitschensiedlung and first mentioned in 1146 as well as 1154 as Koslesk Koselesk. 1238, the city defended bitterly for seven weeks against the troops of Batu Khan, before it was captured and destroyed.

In the second half of the 14th century and from 1445 to 1494 Kozelsk belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from 1494 to the final Grand Duchy of Moscow. Heyday of the city were the 16th and 17th centuries; until the 19th century led to the important trade route between central Russia and Ukraine through the city.

1776 the modern city law as an administrative center of a circle ( Ujesds ) was awarded.

During World War II Kozelsk was occupied on 8 October 1941 by the German Wehrmacht and recaptured on 28 December 1941 by the Western Front of the Red Army in the Kaluga operation.

Demographics

Note: Census data (1926 rounded)

Culture and sights

In the town are the cathedral from 1777, the Annunciation Church ( Благовещенская церковь / Blagoveshchenskaya Tserkov ) in 1810 and received a number of stone merchant houses from the 19th century.

Three kilometers from Kozelsk is located on the opposite, right bank of the Schisdra the Russian Orthodox monastery Optina Pustyn, named after the robbers Opta, which according to tradition here in the 15th century as Macarius (Russian Makari ) founded a hermitage. Under its official name Saint - Mary Temple catchment Monastery ( Свято - Введенский монастырь / Swjato - Vvedenski monastyr ) experienced the former hermitage in the late 18th century, a revival and developed in the 19th century one of the most important religious- philosophical and - cultural centers of Russia. After the October Revolution in 1917, the monastery was closed in 1987 returned to the Russian Orthodox Church and reopened.

On the territory of the monastery of the Dormition Temple catchment Cathedral are ( Введенский собор / Vvedenski Sobor ) from 1750 to 1771, the Church of the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan, short Kazan Church ( Казанская церковь / Kazanskaya Tserkov ) from 1805 to 1811, the church Mary of Egypt ( церковь Марии Египетской / Tserkov Marii Jegipetskoi ) of 1858, the 40 meter high bell tower of the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, shortly Vladimir bell tower ( Владимирская колокольня / Wladimirskaja kolokolnja ) from 1801 to 1804 as well as the wooden church of John the Baptist ( церковь Иоанна Предтечи / Tserkov Ioanna Predtechi ) of 1822.

In the surviving residential buildings from the 19th century, a number of important Russian writer was a guest, as Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy. Impressions of their visits to the Optina Pustyn and from projections of them monks can be found in their works again, so the figure of the Elder Zosima in Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov (1878-1880) after the monk Amwrossi (1812-1891; 1987 Ambrose of Optina, Russian Amwrossi Optinski canonized ) or Tolstoy's father Sergius Powest (1899 ).

Kozelsk has a local history museum focusing on the history of the monastery Optina pustyn and the Forest Museum " Lesnyje Istoki ".

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

Economy and infrastructure

In Kozelsk there is a factory for automobile body parts and operations of the building materials industry and the food industry.

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

After Kozelsk the regional road R94 from Peremyshl leads ( there following the R92 to Kaluga ).