The city of Orel

Orel is an ancient Russian town, one of the regional centres of the Russian Federation. It is in the centre of the European part of Russia. The city of Orel lies 382 km south of Moscow. Orel is more than 400 years old. Its population is now about 370.000.

Orel was founded in 1566 on the order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible as an outpost to protect the southern borders of the Russian State. In the course of its more than four hundred years Orel witnessed many historical events and figured in quite a few of them.

In the 17^th century the army of Ivan Bolotnikov, the leader of the peasant revolt, passed through the town. The troops of the False Demitrius were stationed there, and in 1615 the Russian forces, led by Dmitry Pozharsky, routed the hordes of the Polish invaders at Orel. During the Civil War in Russia(1918-1922) Denikin's troops were routed on the fields around Orel.

The great battle on the Orel-Kursk front has gone into the chronicle of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union against the fascist Germany. Orel was occupied by the Nazi invaders from the 3^rd of October, 1941 till the 5^th of August, 1943. During the war the town was badly damaged. On the 5^th of August, 1943 Orel was liberated by the Soviet Army. On that day a red flag was hoisted on one of the few multistoried buildings which remained intact(now it is 5, Peace Square) to mark the liberation of Orel from the Nazi invaders. The fact of its liberation was marked by the first artillery salute in Moscow in honour of the victory of the Soviet troops in the Battle of Orel and Kursk. Work to rebuild the town began immediately after its liberation.

Today Orel is a major industial and cultural centre. It has many joint-stock companies manufacturing instruments for science and industry, road-building machines, footwear, clothes, furniture,machines for light industry, building materials and so on.

Orel is the birthplace of Ivan Turgenev, the great Russian writer. Interlinked with the city is the life and creative work of many wonderful Russian writers and poets such as Nikolai Leskov and Leonid Andreyev, Ivan Bunin(the first to win the Nobel Prize among the Russian writers) and Mikhail Prishvin, Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet, etc.

Among points of interest in the city are the Turgenev Literary Museum, the Leskov House-Museum, the Museum of Orel writers, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Regional Studies, the House-Museum of N.A.Rusanov, one of the oldest theatres in Russia. It was founded on the 8^th of October, 1815.

Now there are some higher schools and technical secondary schools, colleges and many secondary schools in our city, for example Orel State Technical University, Orel State University, Agrarian University, Institute of Culture and Arts, Commercial Institute.

The most popular kinds of sports in Orel are skiing, skating, cycle racing, gliding, fooball, gymnastics, acrobatics, horse racing and touring.

Orel is a very green city and there are many forests around it. Our city has the proud name “eagle” in English.