Stavropol Krai

Geography

The krai encompasses the central part of the Fore-Caucasus and most of the northern slopes of Caucasus Major. It borders with Rostov Oblast, Krasnodar Krai, the Republic of Kalmykia, the Republic of Dagestan, the Chechen Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, and the Karachay–Cherkess Republic.

History

The krai was established as North Caucasus Krai on October 17, 1924. After undergoing numerous administrative changes, it was renamed Ordzhonikidze Krai (Орджоникидзевский край), after Sergo Ordzhonikidze, in March 1937, and Stavropol Krai on January 12, 1943.

Politics

During the Soviet period, the high authority in the region (krai) was shared between three persons: The First Secretary of the Stavropol Krai CPSU Committee (who in reality had the greatest authority), the Chairman of the Krai Soviet (legislative power), and the Chairman of the Krai Executive Committee (executive power).

In 1970-1978, Mikhail Gorbachev, a native of Stavropol Krai, occupied the position of the First Secretary of the Krai's Communist Party Committee. He left the region for Moscow in 1978, when he was promoted to a Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, to become the Party's General Secretary and the nation's leader 7 years later.

Since 1991, CPSU lost all the power, and the head of the Krai Administration, and eventually the governor was appointed/elected alongside the elected regional parliament.

The Charter of Stavropol Krai is the fundamental law of the region. The Legislative Assembly of Stavropol Krai is the province's regional standing legislative (representative) body. The Legislative Assembly exercises its authority by passing laws, resolutions, and other legal acts and by supervising the implementation and observance of the laws and other legal acts passed by it. The highest executive body is the Krai Government, which includes territorial executive bodies such as district administrations, committees, and commissions that facilitate development and run the day to day matters of the province. The krai administration supports the activities of the Governor who is the highest official and acts as guarantor of the observance of the krai Charter in accordance with the Constitution of Russia.

Population

According to the 2010 Census, the krai's population was 2,786,281; up from 2,735,139 recorded in the 2002 Census and further up from 2,410,379 recorded in the 1989 Census. The population of the krai is concentrated in the drainage basins of the Kuban River and of the Kuma River, which used to be traditional Cossack land (see History of Cossacks). The Kuban Cossacks are now generally considered ethnic Russians, even though they are of Ukrainian origin and still form an important minority in their own right in this area. Other notable ethnic groups include Armenians (mostly Christian Hamsheni) and Pontic Greeks (here usually referred to as Caucasus Greeks) who have been coming to the area (largely from Turkey) as refugees or "economic migrants" from as early as the fall of the Empire of Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia to the Ottomans in 1461, through the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1768-1774 and 1828-1829, and finally following the Greek Genocide of the early 1900s.

Ethnic groups

The 2010 Census counted thirty-three ethnic groups of more than 2,000 persons each, making this federal subject one of the most multiethnic in Russia. The inhabitants identified themselves as belonging to more than 140 different ethnic groups, as shown in the following table:

Note: 26,855 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity. It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group.

Vital Statistics for 2007

Vital statistics for 2012

Religion

According to a 2012 official survey 46.9% of the population of Stavropol Krai adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church, 7% are unaffiliated generic Christians, 5% are Muslims, 1% are either Orthodox Christian believers who do not belong to churches or members of non-Russian Orthodox bodies, and 1% of the population adheres to Rodnovery or local native faiths. In addition, 19% of the population declares to be "spiritual but not religious", 16% is atheist, and 7.1% follows other religions or did not give an answer to the question.

Administrative divisions

Stavropol Krai is administratively divided into twenty-six districts (raions ) and ten cities/towns. The districts are further subdivided into nine towns of district subordinance, seven urban-type settlements, and 284 rural okrugs and stanitsa okrugs.

Agriculture

Irrigated agriculture is well developed in the region. As of the beginning of 2001, Stavropol Krai had 3,361 km of irrigation canals, of which 959 km were lined (i.e., had concrete or stone walls, rather than merely soil walls, to reduce the loss of water).

Among the major irrigation canals are:

Notable people