300 ft. to 450 ft. below the general level, so that the country has a hilly appearance.
The lacustrine depression of the middle Volga and Oka extends into the east of the government. The Upper Carboniferous limestones, of which it is mostly built up, are overlain by Permian sandstones towards the east, and patches of Jurassic clays—denuded remnants of formerly extensive deposits— are scattered over its surface. The whole is covered with a thick sheet of boulder clay, considered to be the bottom moraine of the North-European ice-sheet, and overlaid, in its turn, in the depressions, by extensive lacustrine clays and sands. The geology, especially of the western parts, has been investigated by Professor Nikitin, who has ascertained that under the Glacial and post-Glacial deposits—the lower strata of which contain remains of the mammoth and rhinoceros and the upper fossils of extensive prehistoric forests—occur Lower Cretaceous deposits and deposits intermediate between the Cretaceous and the Jurassic (“Volga” deposits). Upper Jurassic (Kellaway and Oxford) and Upper Carboniferous deposits are also found, and at Gorbatov Permian marls.
The soil is for the most part infertile, 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. Peat is of common occurrence. Forests cover extensive tracts in the south-east. The climate resembles that of Moscow, but is a little colder, and still more continental: the average yearly temperature at the city of Vladimir is 38° F. (January, 16°; July, 66.5°).
The Oka flows through the government for 85 m., and is navigable throughout. Of its tributaries, the Klyazma is navigable to Kovrov, and even to Vladimir in summer; and timber is floated on the Teza. Small lakes are numerous; that of Pleshcheyevo or Pereyaslavl (5 m. in length) has historical associations, Peter the Great having there acquired in his boyhood his first experiences in navigation. The marshes extend to more than half a million acres.
The population was estimated in 1906 as 1,730,400. It is thoroughly Great Russian. The Finnish tribes, Muroma and Merya, which formerly inhabited the region, have been absorbed by the Slavs, as also have the Karelians, who are supposed to have formerly inhabited the territory. The descendants of the few hundred Karelian families, which were settled by Peter the Great on the shores of Lake Pereyaslavl, still, however, preserve their own language. The government is divided into thirteen districts, the chief towns of which are Vladimir, Alexandrov, Gorokhovets, Kovrov, Melenki, Murom, Pereyaslavl Zaiyeskiy, Pokrov, Shuya, Sudogda, Suzdal, Vyazniki and Yuriev Polskiy. Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Gusevsk and Kholui are important industrial towns. The zemstvos (district councils) make considerable efforts to foster education and improve the sanitary arrangements.
The soil is not very fertile, and the standard of agriculture is low, the inhabitants being largely engaged in manufactures. In 1900 1,908,200 acres (15.8% of the entire area) were under cereals. Cherries and apples are exported in considerable quantities.
The cultivation of flax, both for local manufactures and for export—especially about Melenki—is important; so also is that of hemp. Natural pastures are numerous, and support large herds of cattle. The principal crops are rye, oats, wheat, barley and potatoes. The peasants hold 5,591,000 acre's in communal ownership: of this 60% is arable land, 3,802,800 acres belong to private owners, 552,300 acres to the crown and 370,000 acres to the imperial family. The only important mineral is alabaster.
Vladimir ranks third among the governments of European Russia for manufactures. It has some 500 large factories, which employ over 100,000 persons (one-third women); the principal establishments are cotton, linen and silk mills, dye-works, and rope, paper, cardboard, oil, chemical, machinery, glass and iron works, tanneries and distilleries. Wood, coal, petroleum and peat are all used as fuel.
A distinctive feature of Vladimir is the great variety of petty trades carried on by peasants who still continue to cultivate their allotments. While in some villages almost all the male population leave their homes and travel all over Russia as carpenters, masons, iron-roof makers, or as pedlars or travelling merchants, other villages have their specialties in some branch of manufactured produce. Nearly 30,000 carpenters leave Vladimir every year. Whole villages are engaged in painting sacred pictures or ikons; and although the ikons are sold at a shilling the hundred, the aggregate trade is valued at £150,000 a year; and the Vladimir (or rather Suzdal) pictures are sold ail over Russia and the Balkan peninsula. In other villages some 1200 men are employed in making sickles, knives and locks. Wooden vessels, boxes and baskets, lapti (shoes made of lime-tree bark, which are worn in Great Russia and are produced by the million), wheels and sledges, sieves, combs, woollen stockings and gloves, sheep-skins and sheep skin gloves, felt toys, earthenwear and all kinds of woven fabrics, are specialties of other villages. In these petty trades Vladimir occupies the first rank in Russia, the annual production being one-third of the total output for the whole country.
The movement of shipping on the Volga and its tributaries and sub-tributaries, the Oka, Klyazma and Teza, is considerable. The principal ports are Murom on the Volga and Kovrov and Vyazniki on the Klyazma. Timber, wood for fuel and manufactured goods are the chief exports.
Numbers of Palaeolithic stone implements, intermingled with bones of the mammoth and the rhinoceros, and still greater numbers of Neolithic stone implements, have been discovered. There are a great number of burial-mounds belonging to the Bronze and Iron periods, and containing decorations in amber and gold; nearly 2000 such burial-mounds are scattered round Lake Pleshcheyevo, some of them belonging to the pagan period and some to the early Christian. Coins from Arabia, Bokhara, Germany and Anglo-Saxon lands are found in great quantities. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
VLADIMIR, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name known in history as Vladimir-on-the-Klyazma, to distinguish it from Vladimir in Volhynia. It is picturesquely situated on the Klyazma and Lybed, 118 m. by rail E.N.E. of Moscow. Pop. (1884) 18,420; (1900) 32,029. The city is an archiepiscopal see of the Orthodox Greek church. The Lybed divides it into two parts. Extensive cherry orchards occupy the surrounding slopes, and in each is a small watch-tower, with cords drawn in all directions to be shaken by the watcher when birds alight. The kreml stands on a hill and contains two very old cathedrals—the Uspenskiy (1150; restored in 1891), where all the princes of Vladimir have been buried, and the Dmitrievskiy (1197; restored in 1834-1835). Several churches date from the 12th century, including one dedicated to the Birth of Christ, in which St Alexander Nevski was buried. The “Golden Gate”—a triumphal gate surmounted by a church—was built by the grand duke Andrei Bogolyubskiy in 1158.
Vladimir was founded in the 12th century. It first comes into notice in 1151, when Andrei Bogolyubskiy secretly left Vyshgorod—the domain of his father in the principality of Kiev—and migrated to the newly settled land of Suzdal, where he became (1157) grand prince of the principalities of Vladimir, Suzdal and Rostov. In 1242 the principality was overrun by the Mongols under Batu Khan, and he and his successors asserted their suzerainty over it until 1328. During this period Vladimir became the chief town of the Russian settlements in the basin of the Oka, and it disputed the superiority with the new principality of Moscow, to which it finally succumbed in 1328. In the 14th century it began to decay.
VLADIMIR-VOLHYNSKIY, a town of Russia, in the government of Volhynia, 19 m. N.N.E. of the spot where the frontiers of Russia, Poland and Galicia meet and 300 m. W.N.W. of Kiev. Pop. (1885) 8752; (1897) 9695, three-fourths Jews. Though not mentioned in the annals before 988, Vladimir was probably in existence in the 9th century under the name of Ladomir. In the 10th century it was the capital of the principality of Volhynia. The Tatars and the Lithuanians destroyed it several times, but it always recovered, and only fell into decay in the 17th century. It was finally annexed to Russia after the first division of Poland (1772). The ruins in and near the town include remains of a church supposed to have been built by Vladimir, grand duke of Kiev, in the 10th–11th centuries, and of another built in 1160 by his descendant Mstislav. This latter was apparently very well built, and its length exceeded that of the temple of St Sophia at Kiev. The town contains a good archaeological museum.
VLADIVOSTOK, the chief Russian seaport and naval station on the Pacific Ocean, situated at the southern extremity (43° 7′ N. and 131° 55′ E.) of the Maritime Province, not far from the point where that government touches both Manchuria and Korea (Cho-sen). It is connected by rail with Khabarovsk (479 m. N.N.E.), the capital of the Amur region, and with Chita in Transbaikalia (1362 m.) via Ninguta, Kharbin, Tsitsikar and Khailar. Pop. (1900) 38,000. The town stands on Peter the Great Gulf, occupying the northern shore of one of its horn-like expansions, which the Russians have called the Golden Horn. The depth of the Eastern Bosporus ranges from 13 to 20 fathoms, and that of the Golden Horn from 5 to 13, the latter affording a spacious harbour. The hills are covered with forests of oak, lime, birch, maple, cork, walnut, acacia, ash, aspen, poplar, elm, apple, pear and wild cherry, with a rich undergrowth of the most varied shrubs. Excellent timber is supplied by
