 KIROV (called Viatka up to 1934) is located appr. 900 km east of Moscow on the Viatka River. It is an important logistic center with railway lines running to Moscow, Perm, Nizhny Novogorod. It also has a large riverport. The first mention of the town took place in a Russian chronic of 1374 although its foundation as a settlement by the name of Novogorod took place far earlier on. In 1457, the name Khlynov was first mentioned. |
 |
| Khlynov,
which was renamed Viatka in 1780, became the center of
the Viatka gubernia founded in 1796. In tsarist Russia,
Viatka was a place of banishment, among others for the
writers Herzen and Saltykov-Shtshedrin. According to a census of 1996, Kirov has a population of 464,800. Its university has 15 faculties and also houses a laboratory for research on the dialects of the Viatka region. Thus, Viatka is not only the name of a river and the old name of the town of Kirov; it is actually also the name for a region with its own cultural, historical and linguistic identity. Boris Heithecker |
|
