KURSK, a government of European Russia conterminous with those of Tchernigoff, Orel, Voronezh, Poltava, and Kharkoff, and estimated to have an area of 17,417 square miles. The surface is irregular and even hilly, but the highest point (near the town of Tim) does not exceed 1016 feet of absolute elevation. Cretaceous and Eocene rocks prevail, and chalk, iron-stone, mill-stones, potter’s clay, and tripoli are among the economic minerals. The rich black earth of the government makes it one of the best agricultural districts of the country. No fewer than four hundred streams are counted within its borders, but none of them are of any service as waterways. To the Dnieper system belong the Seim, the Vorskla, the Psel, and the Tuskor; to the Don the Northern Donets and its tributaries. Besides oats, which form the staple crop, wheat, rye, potatoes, and buckwheat are largely grown. Beeswax is sent in considerable quantities to Moscow. Horse, cattle, and sheep breeding is on the decline. The manufacturing industries—wool dressing, distillation, tanning, linen weaving—are gaining ground. Wool-spinning and the making of woollen sashes are so generally carried on by the peasant women as to be matter of commercial importance....
The government is divided into fifteen districts—Kursk, Byelgorod, Graivoron, Dmitrieff, Korotcha, Lgoff, Novuii Oskol, Oboyan, Putivl, Ruilsk, Staruii Oskol, Sudzha, Tim, Phatezh, Shtchigrui. The places with more than 5000 inhabitants are Kursk, Borisovka (30,000), Sudzha (with suburbs, 18,000), Byelgorod (16,097), Miropole (10,754), Kholka Mikhaielovka (10,000), Ruilsk (9445), Staruii Oskol (7091), Putivl (7046), Oboyan (6322), Korotoha, and Phatezh. The population of the government was 1,954,807 in 1870, chiefly Great Russians, but considerably modified by the Little Russian element. About 17 miles from the chief town, in a thickly-peopled district, is the site of the Korennaya fair, formerly the greatest of those in South Russia, and still with an annual trade valued at £900,000. It takes its name from an image of the virgin found at the root lforen) of a tree, and yearly-carried in solemn procession from Kursk to the spot of its discovery. The Kursk district contains more than sixty old town sites; and barrows (Jcurgans) are extremely abundant. Of the latter many have been destroyed to furnish manure for the soil, but not a few have been examined by such investigators as Professor Zamokvasoff (see the publications of the Statistical Committee of Kursk).
Kursk, the chief town of the above government, is situated 333 miles south of Moscow, at the confluence of the Kur with the Tuskor, and forms the meeting place of the railways from Moscow, Kieff, and Kharkoff. The inhabitants number more than 30,000, or including the suburbs 45,000. Orchards and nursery gardens are among their chief means of subsistence, and gardeners from Kursk are numerous in the neighbouring governments. The leather works are the most extensive of the industrial establishments. Though many of the public buildings of the town are constructed on a large scale, it is enough to mention the cathedral of the Resurrection, dating from 1733, the cathedral of St Sergius (1762), and the Bogoroditskii monastery.
Kursk was already in existence in 1032. The defence of the town from an incursion of the Polovtsi is celebrated in The Triumph of Igor, au epic which forms one of the most valuable relics of early Russian literature. Down to the close of the 18 th century the citadel, defended by the two rivers and a ditch, was a place of considerable strength; the remains are now comparatively few. The rank of government town was bestowed on Kursk in 1779.
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