Bryansk Oblast

Bryansk Oblast (Russian: Бря́нская о́бласть, romanized: Bryanskaya oblastʹ), also known as Bryanshchina (Брянщина, IPA: [ˈbrʲænʲɕːɪnə]), is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Bryansk. As of the 2021 Census, its population was 1,169,161.

Bryansk Oblast lies in western European Russia in the central to western parts of the East European Plain, on the divide between the Desna and Volga basins. The oblast borders with Smolensk Oblast in the north, Kaluga Oblast in the northeast, Oryol Oblast in the east, Kursk Oblast in the southeast, Chernihiv and Sumy Oblasts of Ukraine in the south, and with Gomel and Mogilev Oblasts of Belarus in the west.

Natural resources include deposits of peat, sand, clay, chalk, marl, and other building materials, as well as phosphorite. About a quarter of the total area of the oblast is covered by forests, mainly coniferous, mixed, and deciduous, as well as forest-steppe.^{[citation needed]}

Bryansky Les Nature Reserve is a biosphere reserve that protects, among other things, a limited population of European bison.^{[citation needed]}

As a result of the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, part of the territory of Bryansk Oblast (mainly Gordeyevsky, Klimovsky, Klintsovsky, Krasnogorsky, Surazhsky, and Novozybkovsky Districts) has been contaminated with radionuclides. In 1999, some 226,000 people, representing approximately 16% of the oblast's population, lived in areas with the contamination level above 5 Curie/km².

The Venus of Eliseevichi is a piece of Paleolithic art (dated to 14,000 YBP) found in the region. The Eliseevichi site is also associated with the earliest recognized dog remains, dating to 15,000 YBP.

In the 9th to 11th centuries AD Slavic tribes lived along the banks of the Desna River and in the forests of the land between the Desna and the Oka. The city of Bryansk was established in 985.

Bryansk remained poorly attested until the 1237-1242 Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus'. It was the northernmost of the Severian cities in the possession of the Chernigov Rurikids and the Principality of Novgorod-Seversk. After the Mongols murdered Prince Mikhail of Chernigov in 1246 and his capital was destroyed, his son Roman Mikhailovich moved his seat to Bryansk. In 1310, when the Mongols sacked the town again, it belonged to the principality of Smolensk. After the Mongols took Chernigov, the Principality of Bryansk was formed. In 1356 Bryansk territory was under the authority of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.