VLADIMIR, a province of the Russian S.F.S.R., surrounded by those of Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Nizhegorod and Ryazan, not coinciding with the pre-I917 province of the same name. Area 30,104 sq. kilometres. Pop. (1926) 1,319,836. It is part of the Central Russian plateau (800-950 ft.) and is grooved by river valleys to a depth of 30o to 450 ft., giving the province a hilly appearance.
The soil is for the most part unfertile, save in the district of Yuriev, where are patches of black earth, which have occasioned a good deal of discussion among Russian geologists. Iron ore is widely diffused, and china clay and gypsum are met with in several places. The climate is continental, with 5 months' frost, an aver age January temperature of i6° F and July 66.5° F, average rain fall 18 to 20 inches. The province is drained by the Oka and its tributary, the Klyazma, which is navigable to Kovrov, and in some parts of summer to Vladimir. Forest, mainly coniferous, covers 43.7% of the province, and marshes cover vast areas in the east. There are many small lakes. Tver is supplied with elec tricity from a peat-using station on the Great Ursov bog.
Ploughed land occupies three times the area under pasture, and cattle raising and dairying are of less importance than in the sur rounding provinces. The chief crops are rye (48.1%), oats (23.1%), and potatoes (11.6%). Buckwheat, flax, hemp, grass, orchard fruits, especially cherries and apples, and berries are cultivated. Flax cultivation, which demands much labour, is more developed than in Moscow province, where the peasants leave the soil and drift to the factories, but even in Vladimir it is not cultivated in the factory areas. There is a great develop
ment of koustar (peasant) textile industries, including the making of linen and woollen piece stuff and knitted goods. Leather, sheep skin and felt are prepared, wooden utensils of every kind, and lapti or shoes made of lime-tree bark. The painting of sacred pictures (ikons) still continues, though there is far less demand f or• them since the revolution. There are smelting, textile, paper, glass, dyeing, timber, cardboard and boot factories. There are boiler-shops and seed-pressing mills.
Vladimir is a region of ancient human settlement. Numbers of Palaeolithic stone implements intermingled with bones of the mammoth and the rhinoceros, and still greater numbers of Neo lithic stone implements, have been discovered. There are burial mounds belonging to the Bronze and Iron periods, and containing decorations in amber and gold ; nearly 2,000 such burial-mounds are scattered round Lake Pleshcheyevo, some of them belonging to the pagan period and some to the early Christian.
The descendants of Karelian families, settled by Peter the Great around Lake Pereyaslavl, still preserve their language and customs, otherwise the province is entirely Great Russian. During the 12th century the principalities of Vladimir, Suzdal and Rostov were united under one grand prince. In the 13th century the Mongols under Batu Khan overran the district and ruled it till 1328, when it was annexed to Moscow.