Kineshemsky District

Kineshemsky District is an administrative and municipal district (raion), one of the twenty-one in Ivanovo Oblast, Russia. It is located in the northeast of the oblast. The area of the district is . Its administrative center is the town of Kineshma (which is not administratively a part of the district). Population: 27,650 (2002 Census); Geography Kineshemsky District is located in the northeast of Ivanovo Oblast, mostly on the right bank (south at this point) of the Volga River. About a fifth of the district is on the left (north) bank of the Volga, which runs west to east through the area. About 2/3 of the area is forested, and 1/3 is agricultural land on sandy and clay soils. Kineshemsky District is 90 km southeast of the city of Kostroma, and 400 km northeast of Moscow. The area measures 60 km (north-south), and 50 km (west-east); total area is 1,583 km2 (about 7% of Ivanovo Oblast). The administrative center, Kineshema, is on the south bank of the Volga, at the northwest entrance to the district. The district is bordered on the north by Zavolzhsky District, on the east by Yuryevetsky District, on the south by Lukhsky District, and on the west by Vichugsky District. History Archaeological records suggest that human settlement in Kineshemsky District began in the second or third century BC by a people of the Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture migrating from the west. They made polished-stone tools and were primarily hunters and fishers. By the first millennium AD the area was inhabited by the Meriya tribe of the Volga-Finns, raising cattle and beginning to build fortified towns. By the end of the first millennium a burial-mound culture of Krivachi Slavs had moved in with more advanced cattle-breeding and agricultural practices.