Chita Oblast ( rus, Чити́нская о́бласть, r=Čitínskaja óblastj, p=tɕɪˈtʲinskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) was a
federal subject
The federal subjects of Russia, also referred to as the subjects of the Russian Federation (russian: субъекты Российской Федерации, subyekty Rossiyskoy Federatsii) or simply as the subjects of the federation (russian ...
of
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
(an
oblast
An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdom ...
) in southeast
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
. Its
administrative center
An administrative center is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune is located.
In countries with French as administrative language (such as Belgium, L ...
was the
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be de ...
of Chita. It had extensive international borders with China (998 km) and
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 millio ...
Amur Oblast
Amur Oblast ( rus, Аму́рская о́бласть, r=Amurskaya oblast, p=ɐˈmurskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located on the banks of the Amur and Zeya Rivers in the Russian Far East. The administrativ ...
Yakutia
Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),, is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of roughly 1 million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far ...
. Its area was . Population:
The oblast was established on September 26, 1937. On March 1, 2008, Chita Oblast merged with
Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug
Agin-Buryat Autonomous Okrug ( bua, Агын Буряадай автономито тойрог) was a federal subject of the Russian Federation. On 1 March 2008, the region merged with Chita Oblast (which it was surrounded by) to form the new ...
to form
Zabaykalsky Krai
Zabaykalsky Krai ( rus, Забайкальский край, r=Zabaikal'skii krai, p=zəbɐjˈkalʲskʲɪj kraj, lit. " Transbaikal krai"; bua, Yбэр Байгалай хизаар, Uber Baigalai Xizaar) is a federal subject of Russia (a krai ...
.
The territory that made up the former Chita Oblast was first explored by Cossacks led by Pyotr Beketov in 1653. People began to move into and develop the area in order to strengthen Russia's border with China and Mongolia, extract mineral resources, and build the
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the eas ...
. In 1920, Chita became the capital of the
Far East Republic
The Far Eastern Republic ( rus, Дальневосто́чная Респу́блика, ДВР, r=Dalnevostochnaya Respublika, DVR, p=dəlʲnʲɪvɐˈstotɕnəjə rʲɪsˈpublʲɪkə), sometimes called the Chita Republic, was a nominally indep ...
, which merged with Russia in November 1922, a month before the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
was constituted.
The oblast was rich in ferrous, non-ferrous, rare, and precious metals,
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as stratum, rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen ...
, charcoal, and mineral waters. Russia's estimated reserves of ores with a high
uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weakly ...
content are 145,400 tons. Most of these deposits are located in the former Chita Oblast, near Krasnokamensk, site of the Priargunsky Mining and Chemical Combine (PMCC Forests cover about 60% of its territory. As a result, the oblast's main industries were
metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys.
Metallurgy encompasses both the sci ...
,
fuel
A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy bu ...
, and
timber
Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including Beam (structure), beams and plank (wood), planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as fini ...
. It also had advanced light and food industries. Local agriculture focused on
cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ...
,
sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated sh ...
, and
reindeer
Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subsp ...
breeding.
Administrative divisions
Demographics
Birth rate: Quite high at 13.77 (2004), but still there were more deaths than births (2005 official figures).
The population were mostly
Russians
, native_name_lang = ru
, image =
, caption =
, population =
, popplace =
118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate)
, region1 =
, pop1 ...
and
Buryats
The Buryats ( bua, Буряад, Buryaad; mn, Буриад, Buriad) are a Mongolic ethnic group native to southeastern Siberia who speak the Buryat language. They are one of the two largest indigenous groups in Siberia, the other being the Ya ...
, along with some
Ukrainians
Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian. The majority of Ukrainians are Eastern Or ...
and a few
Evenks
The Evenks (also spelled Ewenki or Evenki based on their endonym )Autonym: (); russian: Эвенки (); (); formerly known as Tungus or Tunguz; mn, Хамниган () or Aiwenji () are a Tungusic people of North Asia. In Russia, the Ev ...
. There were 1,000
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
, who mostly speak Yiddish in the regional capital. According to the 2002 census, Russians made up 89.8% of the population while Buryats were 6.1%. Other significant groups were
Tatars
The Tatars ()Tatar in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different (0.71%),
Armenians
Armenians ( hy, հայեր, '' hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...
(0.31%),
Belarusians
, native_name_lang = be
, pop = 9.5–10 million
, image =
, caption =
, popplace = 7.99 million
, region1 =
, pop1 = 600,000–768,000
, region2 =
, pop2 ...
(0.26%),
Azeri
Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numer ...
(0.18%),
Evenks
The Evenks (also spelled Ewenki or Evenki based on their endonym )Autonym: (); russian: Эвенки (); (); formerly known as Tungus or Tunguz; mn, Хамниган () or Aiwenji () are a Tungusic people of North Asia. In Russia, the Ev ...
Bashkirs
, native_name_lang = bak
, flag = File:Bashkirs of Baymak rayon.jpg
, flag_caption = Bashkirs of Baymak in traditional dress
, image =
, caption =
, population = approx. 2 million
, popplace ...
(0.11%), Moldvins (0.07%),
Mordvins
The Mordvins (also Unified Mordvin people, Mordvinians, Mordovians; russian: мордва, Mordva, Mordvins (no equivalents in Moksha and Erzya)) is an obsolete but official term used in the Russian Federation to refer both to Erzyas and Mo ...
(0.06%),
Uzbeks
The Uzbeks ( uz, , , , ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to the wider Central Asia, Central Asian region, being among the largest Turkic ethnic group in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to ...
(0.06%) and Dargwa (0.05%).
In 2007, Chita Oblast recorded a small natural population increase (+0.03% without taking any migration into account), becoming one of the only two Russian federal subjects to reverse its population decline in 2007. The other federal subject was Kamchatka Oblast, with a NGPR of +0.005%. Chita Oblast is one of only twenty Russian federal subjects to have a positive natural growth of population But population of Chita actually decreased in 2007 due to very heavy emigration.
Vital Statistics for 2007: Total fertility rates by federal subjects of Russia#Natural Growth by Federal Subjects in 2007, Source
*Birth Rate: 14.63 per 1000
*Death Rate: 14.33 per 1000
*Net Immigration: -3.2 per 1000
*NGR: +0.03% per Year
*PGR: -0.29% per Year