VORONEZH, a province of the Russian S.F.S.R., having the Ukrainian S.S.R. and the North Caucasian area on the south, Kursk and Orel on the west, Tambov on the north and Stalin grad on the east. Area 65,306 sq. kilometres. Pop. (1926) 700. It is now included in the recently created Black Earth Area (Central) (q.v.). It does not coincide with the pre-1917 province of the same name.
Voronezh occupies the southern slopes of the Central Russian plateau (450-700 ft.), and its surface is hilly and intersected by deep ravines in the west, where two ranges of chalk hills sepa rated by a broad valley run north and south. East of the Don river is a low plain. Glacial clays with erratic boulders, and lacustrine clays and sands cover much of the area, but the De vonian rocks crop out in the north and provide good paving and building stone, while the carboniferous rocks supply millstones and grindstones. There is an abundant supply of chalk and kaolin clay for pottery.
The magnetic anomaly existing in Kursk extends into the south west of Voronezh and indicates the presence of deep-seated iron ore beds. The soils are mainly black earth formed on loess; they vary in character from the rich black earth with a high humus content of the southern "feather grass" steppe, through the mead ow steppe of the centre to the "lyesso steppe" of the north. This latter is black earth on which forest spread with moister con ditions ; the forest has now disappeared, through reckless cutting, and the black earth here is reduced in humus quantity to 4 to 6%. The forest cutting has had a disastrous effect in the west and centre for the spring streams, swollen by melting snow, fre quently wash away fields and roads. In the last 25 years 135,000 ac. of fertile black earth have been washed away and replaced by river sand. Efforts are being made to cope with this by pro hibition of forest cutting in the upper courses of the rivers, and of cattle driving on ravine slopes ; by ploughing across the slopes and not down them, and by the construction of canals and ditches. The problem is less acute in the east.
The climate is of the continental type, average January tern perature at Voronezh 8.3° F, average July 74.2° F. The rainfall is variable and not very favourable to agriculture. If the spring rains (especially in May) fail, as they often do, famine fre quently ensues. June and July are months of thunder-storm and very heavy rainfall, which comes in fierce and often destructive storms. The snow covering also varies ; if it is deep, there is a chance of a good harvest, e.g., in 1906-07 it remained 3 ft. deep most of the winter. In some years there is very little snow and the harvest is then poor. Autumn is very brief, but winter often lasts 51 months, though a duration of two months only has been recorded. The rivers are frozen as a rule from Nov. 20 in the north and from Dec. 10, in the south-west. Snow melts as a rule in April. Winter is dull and cloudy, often with heavy fog. Another cause of disaster is the dry, cold, south-east winds which often blow in May and cause great damage to young crops.
These varied risks of disaster due to climate hamper agricul ture seriously and famines have been frequent (1891, 1911, 1921) and severe. Weeds lessen the harvest, and their seeds are fre quently not removed from the grain harvest, while rodents, mice, rats, hamsters, susliks and marmots in the south and south-east do great damage. A further drawback is the entirely inadequate system of communications ; roads are often impassable through mud or deep in dust, and railways are insufficient, so that in years of abundance there is no outlet for the surplus, and in years of famine it is impossible to help the population. The 1891 famine resulted in some improvements of railway conditions.
The three-field system, probably introduced in the 16th cen tury, gradually ousted the previous system of sowing till the land was exhausted, and then letting it lie fallow, sometimes for 20 or 3o years, till it recovered its fertility, and the hunting, fishing and bee-keeping, formerly wide-spread, has almost disappeared. By the end of the 19th century, a few agricultural specialists had begun to agitate against the wasteful three-field system and about 3% of the land in 1900 was worked on a many-field system, e.g., a fallow year, under manure, rye, oats with clover, two years grass and clover, a clover fallow without manure, rye, potatoes or sugar-beet, oats or sunflower seed. A complicated system such as this, however, demands forethought and a fairly high stage of culture from the farmer, and the peasants in the Black Earth region are illiterate. The region is poverty-stricken and in many villages the peasants live in one-roomed huts infested by lice, fleas, blackbeetles and other vermin. Diet is poor, mainly starchy foods ; eggs and butter are reserved for sale and meat is unob tainable in the general poverty-stricken conditions. Sanitation is absent and there is frequently no town or village provision for cleaning or repairing the streets, or for supplying water, or medi cal and veterinary help. This deplorable social condition is partly due to the difficulties outlined above, but mainly to historic fac tors. The long subjection of the peasants, first to Tatar oppres sion and later to serfdom under Russian landlords ended only in 1861, and the so-called "liberation" of the serfs in that year was followed by an almost as oppressive debt slavery. Between 1896 and 1914 thousands of peasants emigrated to Siberia and the south, while others wandered seasonally in search of supple mentary occupation. From 1914 onwards, mobilization of the most useful agricultural labour was recklessly enforced and from 1918 to 1920 the region was occupied first by German troops and then by the conflicting armies of the Civil War. Upon this super vened the famine of 1921. Large sums of money were voted by the All Russian Executive at Moscow in 1925-26 for the supply of horses, seeds, agricultural implements and agronomic and vet erinary help to the region, but it must be many years before con ditions are markedly improved.