KALUGA, a province of the Russian S.F.S.R., surrounded by those of Moscow, Smolensk, Briansk, Orel and Tula, and not coinciding exactly with the pre-1917 province of the same name. Area 25,687 sq.km. Pop. (1926) 1,151,656. Its surface is an undulating plain (800-900 ft.), deeply entrenched by rivers, the town of Kaluga lying at the junction of the valleys of the Ugra and the Oka. The province is mainly built up of Carbonif erous deposits, with patches of soft Jurassic clays and limestones which formerly covered the whole region. Coal is mined along the railway running from Kaluga to the Oka River, but is smoky and not of very high calorific value ; iron is mined in the south west. Boulder clay covers the north, which is strewn with boulders brought from Finland and Olonets during the glacial period; in the centre are flint boulders, and to the south patches of loess. The soils are mainly of the grey forest type in the north, merging into black earth with a somewhat low humus content in the south. The climate is extreme, winter frost lasting for five months, and summer temperatures averaging 66° F ; the rainfall, about 20 inches per annum, is adequate in view of temperature condi tions. These soil and climate conditions are not ideal for agri culture, but are more favourable than in some provinces of Cen tral Russia, and ploughed land here occupies about three times the area under meadow and grassland. Forest and shrub occupy 27.3% of the province, coniferous in the north and deciduous, with birch, ash and oak in the south.
The chief crops are rye (44.4%), oats (21.5%), and potatoes (8.2%). Grass, barley, buckwheat, flax and a little hemp are grown, and along the Oka river cucumbers, cabbages, onions and apples are cultivated. Flax, which demands much labour, is raised in greater quantity than in the Moscow province, where linen factories create a market for it, because there is more labour available, since there are fewer factories to draw off surplus hands.
Stock raising includes sheep, working and milch cattle, horses and pigs; dairying is not much developed. In accordance with the bet ter agricultural conditions of the loess area, peasant industries are less important than in the provinces of poorer agricultural opportunities. They include the making of wooden articles (69%), leather (2o%), cement, and chemicals in the Medynsk district. Fireclay, china-clay, chalk, grindstone, pure quartz sand, phos phorite and copper are extracted by peasant artels, and Medyn has a match factory. The province has a comparatively good railway net, and steam navigation is possible on 6o% of its rivers. Kaluga is the chief town of the province, situated on the left bank of the Oka, in 35' N., 36° 15' E. Pop. (1933) 6o,600. Its industries include saw-milling, smelting, brewing, sausage manufacture, brick-making and the making of leather goods. It is a good trading centre, on a navigable river, and has railways, roads and telegraph lines radiating from it. The first historical mention of Kaluga occurs in 1389; its incorporation with the principality of Moscow took place in 1518. In 1607 it was held by the second false Demetrius and vainly besieged for four months by the forces of Shuisky. In 1619 Kaluga fell into the hands of the hettnan or chief of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. Later two thirds of its inhabitants were carried off by a plague; and in 1622 the whole place was laid waste by a conflagration. It re covered, however, in spite of several other conflagrations (espe cially in 1742 and On several occasions Kaluga was the residence of political prisoners; among others Shamyl, the Les ghian chief, spent his exile there (1859-187o).