Kaluga Region in 3 Russian words
The world's first nuclear power plant was opened in Kaluga Region, while the largest art park in Europe, ‘Nikola-Lenivets’, is located there. Below are three more symbols of this region.
1. ОПТИНА ПУСТЫНЬ (Optina Pustyn)
Optina Pustyn is an Orthodox monastery for men located near the city of Kozelsk in Kaluga Region. By the beginning of the 19th century, it had become one of the main spiritual centers of Russia. Among others, writers Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Gogol, as well as composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky, visited it.
2. МУЗЕЙ КОСМОНАВТИКИ (Cosmonautics Museum)
Founded in Kaluga in 1961, the K. E. Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics is the world's first museum dedicated to the history of space exploration. It was created with the direct participation of cosmonauts Sergei Korolev and Yuri Gagarin. The museum's collection contains over 75,000 exhibits, making it the largest in Russia.
3. ГЕОРГИЙ ЖУКОВ (Georgy Zhukov)
The most prominent Soviet commander of World War II was born in the village of Strelkovka, northeast of Kaluga, on December 1, 1896. A house-museum now stands where Marshal Zhukov was born and spent his early years.
