Kaluga's most famous resident, the space travel pioneer
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, worked there as a school teacher from 1892 to 1935. The
Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics in Kaluga is dedicated to his theoretical achievements and to their practical implementations for modern space research, hence the motto on the city's
coat of arms: Колыбель Космонавтики, Kolybélʹ kosmonávtiki ("The Cradle of Space-Exploration").
Kaluga, founded in the mid-14th century as a border fortress on the southwestern borders of the
Grand Duchy of Moscow, first appears in the historical record in chronicles in the 14th century as Koluga; the name comes from Old Russian kaluga - "bog, quagmire".[15] During the period of Tartar raids it was the western end of the Oka bank defense line. The
Great stand on the Ugra River was fought just to the west. In the Middle Ages Kaluga was a minor settlement owned by the Princes
Vorotynsky. The
ancestral home of these princes lies southwest of the modern city.
On 19 January 1777, the
Kaluga drama theatre opened its first theatrical season, established with the direct participation of the Governor-General
M. N. Krechetnikov.
Kaluga is connected to Moscow by a railway line and by the ancient roadway, the Kaluga Road (now partly within Moscow (as
Starokaluzhskoye Shosse - the Old Kaluga Highway), partly the
A101 road). This road offered
Napoleon his favored escape route from the Moscow trap in the fall of 1812. But General
Kutuzov repelled Napoleon's advances in this direction and forced the retreating French army onto the old Smolensk road, previously devastated by the French during their invasion of Russia.
On several occasions during the Russian Empire Kaluga was the residence of political exiles and prisoners such as the last Crimean khan
Şahin Giray (1786), the Kyrgyz sultan Arigazi-Abdul-Aziz (1828), the Georgian princess
Thecla (1834–1835), and the Avar leader
Imam Shamil (1859–1868).
The
Germanarmy briefly occupied Kaluga during the climactic
Battle of Moscow, as part of
Operation Barbarossa. The city was under full or partial German occupation from October 12 to December 30, 1941. In 1944, the Soviet Government used its local military buildings to intern hundreds of Polish prisoners of war — soldiers of the Polish underground
Home Army — whom the advancing Soviet front had arrested in the area around
Vilnius.
Demographics
Historical population
Year
Pop.
±%
1897
49,513
—
1926
49,425
−0.2%
1939
89,396
+80.9%
1959
134,235
+50.2%
1970
210,906
+57.1%
1979
265,013
+25.7%
1989
311,399
+17.5%
2002
334,751
+7.5%
2010
324,698
−3.0%
2021
337,058
+3.8%
Source: Census data
As of the
2021 Census, the ethnic composition of Kaluga was:[16]
The
Kaluga Turbine Plant is located here as is
Kaluga Machine Works, which manufactures track machines for railways. In recent years, Kaluga has become one center of the Russian
automotive industry, with a number of foreign companies opening assembly plants in the area:
On 15 October 2007, the
Volvo Group broke ground on a new truck assembly plant, that was inaugurated on 19 January 2009,[18] with a yearly capacity of 10,000 Volvo and 5,000
Renault trucks.[19]
Kaluga has a humid temperate continental (
Köppen climate classification: Dfb), with warm and humid summers; and long, cold and snowy winters. Winter extreme records can be as low as −45 °C (−49 °F), while summer heat may reach up +40 °C (104 °F), but normal variation is between −5 °C (23 °F) and −20 °C (−4 °F) during winter and between 15 °C (59 °F) and 30 °C (86 °F) during summer in Kaluga.
Climate data for Kaluga, Russia (period 1961–1990)
^
ab"Города-побратимы". kaluga-gov.ru (in Russian). Kaluga. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
Sources
Законодательное Собрание Калужской области. №473 27 марта 1996 г. «Устав Калужской области», в ред. Закона №681-ОЗ от 27 февраля 2015 г. «О внесении изменений в Устав Калужской области». Опубликован: "Весть", №79, 9 апреля 1996 г. (Legislative Assembly of Kaluga Oblast. #473 March 27, 1996 Charter of Kaluga Oblast, as amended by the Law #681-OZ of February 27, 2015 On Amending the Charter of Kaluga Oblast. ).
Законодательное Собрание Калужской области. Закон №7-ОЗ от 28 декабря 2004 г. «Об установлении границ муниципальных образований, расположенных на территории административно-территориальных единиц "Бабынинский район", "Боровский район", "Дзержинский район", "Жиздринский район", "Жуковский район", "Износковский район", "Козельский район", "Малоярославецкий район", "Мосальский район", "Ферзиковский район", "Хвастовичский район", "город Калуга", "город Обнинск", и наделении их статусом городского поселения, сельского поселения, городского округа, муниципального района», в ред. Закона №620-ОЗ от 29 сентября 2014 г. «О внесении изменений в Закон Калужской области "Об установлении границ муниципальных образований, расположенных на территории административно-территориальных единиц "Бабынинский район", "Боровский район", "Дзержинский район", "Жиздринский район", "Жуковский район", "Износковский район", "Козельский район", "Малоярославецкий район", "Мосальский район", "Ферзиковский район", "Хвастовичский район", "город Калуга", "город Обнинск", и наделении их статусом городского поселения, сельского поселения, городского округа, муниципального района"». Вступил в силу после официального опубликования, за исключением положений о муниципальном образовании "Город Калуга", для которых установлены иные сроки вступления в силу. Опубликован: "Весть", №402–404, 29 декабря 2004 г. (Legislative Assembly of Kaluga Oblast. Law #7-OZ of December 28, 2004 On Establishing the Borders of the Municipal Formations Located on the Territory of the Administrative-Territorial Units of "Babyninsky District", "Borovsky District", "Dzerzhinsky District", "Zhizdrinsky District", "Zhukovsky District", "Iznoskovsky District", "Kozelsky District", "Maloyaroslavetsky District", "Mosalsky District", "Ferzikovsky District", "Khvastovichsky District", "City of Kaluga", "City of Obninsk", and on Granting Them the Status of an Urban Settlement, Rural Settlement, Urban Okrug, Municipal District, as amended by the Law #620-OZ of September 29, 2014 On Amending the Law of Kaluga Oblast "On Establishing the Borders of the Municipal Formations Located on the Territory of the Administrative-Territorial Units of "Babyninsky District", "Borovsky District", "Dzerzhinsky District", "Zhizdrinsky District", "Zhukovsky District", "Iznoskovsky District", "Kozelsky District", "Maloyaroslavetsky District", "Mosalsky District", "Ferzikovsky District", "Khvastovichsky District", "City of Kaluga", "City of Obninsk", and on Granting Them the Status of an Urban Settlement, Rural Settlement, Urban Okrug, Municipal District". Effective as of after the official publication, with the exception of the clauses regarding the municipal formation of the "City of Kaluga", for which different dates of taking effect are specified.).