The Oka flows through the government for 85 miles, and is navigable throughout. Of its tributaries, the Klyasma is navigable to Kovroff, and even to Vladimir in summer; and timber is floated on the Teza. Small lakes are numerous; that of Plescheyevo or Pereyasłavl (5 miles in length) has historical associations, Peter I. having here acquired in his boyhood his first experiences in navigation. Marshes cover more than half a million acres.

The population (1,359,330 in 1883) is thoroughly Great Russian; the Finnish tribes, Muroma and Merya, which formerly inhabited the region, have been absorbed by the Slavonians, as also have the Karelians who are supposed to have formerly inhabited the territory; the descendants of the few hundred Karelian families, which were settled by Peter I. on the shores of Lake Pereyaslavl, still, however, maintain their language. Agriculture is carried on everywhere, but is in a prosperous state only on the left bank of the Klyasma, and corn is imported. The culture of flax, both for local manufactures and for export—especially about Melenki—is important; so also are that of hemp and gardening. Natural pastures being by no means deficient, the number of cattle is greater than might be expected in a province so backward in agriculture. The average crops of the years 1883-85 were—rye, 1,400,300 quarters; oats, 1,097,000; wheat, 36,400; barley, 63,000; other grains, 250,800; and potatoes, 52,300. In 1883 there were 323,000 cattle, 210,050 horses, and 330,050 sheep.

A distinctive feature of Vladimir is the great variety of petty trades carried on in its villages by peasants who still continue to cultivate their allotments and thus combine manufacture with agriculture. Nearly every village has its own specialty, and, while in some of them almost all the male population leave their homes and go in numerous artels (see vol. xxi. p. 84) all over Russia as carpenters, masons, iron-roof makers, or as ofeni (pedlars or travelling merchants), other villages have their specialties in some branch of manufactured produce. Nearly 30,000 carpenters leave Vladimir every year. Whole villages are engaged in painting sacred pictures or ikons, and there are weekly fairs, where no fewer than 130 cart-loads of planks for such works are bought every week during winter. Although the ikons are sold at a shilling the hundred, the aggregate trade is valued at £150,000 a year; and the Vladimir (or rather Suzdal) pictures spread all over Russia and the Balkan peninsula. In other villages some 1200 men are employed in making sickles, knives, or locks. Wooden vessels, boxes, and baskets, lapti (shoes made of lime-tree bark which are worn in Great Russia, and are produced by the million), wheels and sledges, sieves, combs, woollen stockings and gloves, sheepskins and sheepskin gloves for peasants, felt, all kinds of toys, earthenware, and finally all kinds of woven fabrics, are so many specialties of separate villages. In 1884 102,500 persons were directly engaged in petty trades, in which indeed Vladimir occupies the first rank in Russia, the annual production (63,000,000 roubles) being one-third of the total for the whole country, Moscow coming next with 37,300,000 roubles.

The manufactures of Vladimir are equally important: out of the aggregate production of the fifty governments of European Russia (1,329,602,000 roubles in 1884), Vladimir was returned for 88,827,000 roubles, exclusive of numerous minor manufactures not included in the census. In the number of workmen employed in manufactures (102,900) Vladimir is second only to Moscow, and in its production it is second only to Moscow and St Petersburg. The chief industrial establishments are cotton and linen factories, glass, chemical, and iron works, distilleries, and tanneries.

Vladimir is divided into fourteen districts, the chief towns of which (with populations in 1884) arc Vladimir q.v .), 18,420; Alexandroff, 6915; Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 14,060; Kovroff, 8050; Melenki, 6470; Murom (q.v. ), 13,680; Pereyasłavl Zalyesskiy, 7470; Pokroff, 2700; Shuya (q.v. ), 21,430; Sudogda, 1880; Suzdal, 6770; Vyazniki, 6015; and Yurieff Polskiy, 5400. Kirzhatch (3285), Voznesensk (6000), and Gavriłovsk (1780) have also municipal institutions. Ivanovo, Gusevsk, Khotui, and several others, though mere villages, are more important than some district towns.

VLADIMIR, capital of the above government, is known in history as Vladimir-on-the-Klyasma, to distinguish it from Vladimir in Volhynia. It is picturesquely situated on the Klyasma and Lybed, 114 miles by rail to the east of Moscow. The Lybed divides it into two parts. Extensive cherry gardens occupy the surrounding slopes, each with its small watch-tower, having cords drawn in all directions to be shaken by the watcher when birds alight. The kreml stands on a hill and contains two very old cathedrals—the Uspenskiy (1150), where all princes of Vladimir have been buried, and the Dmitrievskiy, restored in 1834 in its old style. Several churches date from the 12th century. The “Golden Gate ”—a triumphal gate surmounted by a church—was built by Andrei Bogolubskiy in 1158. On the whole Vladimir is a decaying place; its population has only risen to 18,420 in 1884 from 13,865 in 1859. The manufactures are for the most part insignificant, and trade has not the importance it has in some of the district towns.

Vladimir was founded in the 12th century. It first comes into notice in 1151, when Andrei Bogolubskiy secretly left Vyshgorod —the domain of his father in the principality of Kieff—and migrated to the newly settled land of Suzdal, where he became (1157) grandprince of the principalities of Vladimir, Suzdal, and Rostoff. During the next century Vladimir became the chief town of the Russian settlements in the basin of the Oka, and till 1328 it disputed the superiority with the new principality of Moscow q.v. ). In the 14th century it began to fall to decay; and, like Pskoff, it is now one of the less important provincial cities of Russia.