Under this heading, an update of the administrative and demographic conditions of the greater Soviet Union Republic (RSFSR), which extends from both sides of the Urals, is given. For the economic part, as well as for the historical events, see the USSR item in this Appendix.
Administrative division. – We refer to the breakdown reported under the heading USSR, in the App. I, p. 1098. The surface of the republic further increased (from 16,681,700 sq. Km. In 1940 to 16,907,380 sq. Km. In 1946) due to the incorporation of the Petsamo region (10,480 sq. Km. With 4330 residents, from Finland: September 1944), from the region between Viipuri and Käkisalmi (7,500 sq. km. with 150,000 residents, from the Karelo-Finnish federated republic: 1945), from the district of Jaunlatgale (1160 sq. km. with 37,780 residents, from the Lithuanian federated republic: January 1945), from the district of Petseri (1350 sq. km. with 49.130 residents, from the Estonian federated republic: January 1945), of the Tannu Tuva republic (in 1944: about 150.000 sq. km. and 65.000 residents) of the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kuril islands (46.190 sq. km. with 419,290 residents, from Japan: September 1945). Since 1945, then, the Königsberg region (about 9000 sq.km.with 400.000 residents; see the entry, in this App.), annexed to the USSR (and renamed Kaliningrad) although not united with territorial continuity to the Russian republic, is part of it and there it forms a special circumscription. Currently the republic is divided into 45 oblasts (provinces, of which 35 to the west and 10 to the east of the Ural mountains) and in 6 krai (territories, of which 2 to the west and 4 to the east of the Urals), in 6 autonomous oblasts (under the immediate jurisdiction of neighboring krai: territory of the Adyghé and Circassians, prov. of the Jews of Amur, territory of the Chakassi, of the Oirati, and Tannu Tuva), in 9 national okrugi (i.e. autonomous surroundings: Samoyeds of Nenez, Samoyeds of Jamal, Samoyeds of Tajmyr, Ostiachi -Voguli, district of Evenky, Mongolian-Buryat of Ust′-Ordynsk, Mongolian-Buryat of Aghinsk, Komi-Permiechi, Coriaki, Chukci), and in 12 autonomous republics (Mordvini, Ciuvasci, Mari, Tatari, Udmurti, Baškiri, Komi, Kabardo-Balkari, Northern Ossetia, Dagestan, Buriati-Mongoli, Jakuti). During the war, the republics of the Volga Germans (28,200 sq km with 605,500 residents), The Kalmyks (74,200 sq km with 220,700 residents) And the Chechen-Ingush (15,700 sq km. With 697,400 residents) Disappeared, whose territories were divided among the neighboring oblasts ; while that of the Crimea was transformed, in 1945, into an oblast ‘(see the individual entries in this App.). In the same period the oblasts, which were 30 before the war, were brought to the aforementioned number (45) with the creation of new units, a creation determined by various facts, all linked to the political and economic conditions that had occurred in Russia during those years: for example., the migration of population from areas close to the German advance towards safer eastern regions (such as along the valleys of the Kama and Ob ′ rivers), which naturally gave rise to an immediate industrial development of the newly settled regions; the splitting, carried out in 1945, of very large administrative units into smaller units, to facilitate post-war reconstruction; the elimination of some autonomous units which determined in some regions (such as between the Kyrgyz steppe and the Caucasian chain), a new administrative division.Siberian oblasts: Ulyanovsk, Kurgan, Tyumen, Tomsk and Kemerovo; to the second, the creation of another 7 oblasts between the upper Volga basin, the upper Dnieper basin and the Baltic socialist republics: Kostroma, Vladimir, Novgorod, Pskov, Velikie Luki, Kaluga and Bryansk; to the third case two new oblasts are due: Astrakhan ′ and Groznyj, plus that of the Crimea mentioned above.
Population. – The total population of the Russian Socialist Federal Republic was, in 1939, of 109,279,000 residents approximately. The new territories annexed between 1944 and 1946 brought it another 1,125,530 residents Up to now, however, it is not possible to give a detailed and updated picture of their distribution. In the table on the side, only the surface and population data relating to the 30 oblasts and 6 krai existing before the war, and to the autonomous republics that remained alive after the war, are cited. These figures are taken from the Soviet census of 1939. Therefore, the administrative units created during the war do not appear in the mirror, nor the regions and populations incorporated afterwards.
Apart from the two metropolises of Moscow and Leningrad (see the entries in this App.), Two cities (Gorky and Rostov) in 1939 had exceeded five hundred thousand residents and 49 the hundred thousand residents (besides those mentioned in the mirror: Astrakhan ′ with 253.655, Kemerovo with 132.978, Kostroma with 121.205, Magnitogorsk with 145.870, Stalinsk with 169.538, Tomsk with 141.215, etc.). Overall, about 1/3 of the total population lives in cities.
Thanks to the great variety of regions it embraces and the considerable wealth of mineral resources (especially in Siberia), the Russian republic contributes about 70% to the agricultural and industrial production of the Soviet Union.
War damage to monuments. – The cities that suffered the most from an artistic point of view are Novgorod and Smolensk. In Novgorod the churches of the Transfiguration of the Savior in Nerodica (XII century), of the Assumption in Volotovo (XIX century), of S. Nicolò in Lipna (XIII century), of the Annunciation (XIV century) were destroyed, of the Assumption (XVI century), of the Archangel S. Michele, of the convent of S. Andrea di Skovorodino (XIII-XIV century), the cloister of S. Antonio. Among the severely damaged monuments we remember the church of the Protectress Virgin, of S. Teodoro Stratilate (14th century), the churches of the Intercession of the Virgin (17th century) and of S. Nicolò in the Zverine convent; of the Apostles Peter and Paul (XIV century), of the Nativity of the Virgin (XVI century), of the martyr Clemente and of Nikita (XVI century), of S. Giovanni Battista (XVI century). Even the cathedral of St. Sophia was damaged: the golden covering of its domes was removed by the Germans, the famous fresco of the Savior that decorated the great dome is completely destroyed and damaged were the iconostasis, the precious collections of the sacristy and the library. In Smolensk a large part of the famous churches of the century was destroyed. XII, such as those of S. Nicolò, of the Salvatore, of the Holy Spirit, of S. Giorgio, of the Assumption, as well as the Cathedral of the Epiphany.
Serious damage to the artistic monuments is also to be lamented in Istra (destruction of the 17th century cathedral, of the convent of the new Jerusalem), in Kalinin, in Kaluga, in Možajsk, in Starica, in Toržok.
Numerous museums have been destroyed or damaged; among these the old Tsars palaces in Pushkino, Pavlovsk in Gath? čina, which after the October revolution had been transformed into museums.
