BRYANSK OBLAST

An administrative region of the Russian Federation. Part of the CentralFederal Districtand the CentralEconomic Region, Bryansk borders easternBelarusand northernUkraine, as well as theoblastsofSmolensk,Kaluga, Orel, andKursk. Its area is 34,900 square kilometers, and it has a population of just fewer than 1.4 million. Itsgeographyis defined by the Central Russian Highlands and the Desna River.

Bryansk administers the Russian exclave of Sankovo-Medvezhye, an area of some 4.5 square kilometers near the Belarusian city of Homel and the Russian border city of Dobrodyevka; the region is uninhabited and highly contaminated as a result of theChernobyl disaster.Bryansk is a major industrial area of the Russian Federation specializing in building materials and metalworking, as well as a center ofagriculturalproduction. Due to its proximity to the fallout from Chernobyl, the region continues to grapple with high rates of thyroid and other types of cancer.

Part of theRed Belt, Bryansk’sCommunistgovernor Yury Lodkin, a former ITAR-TASS correspondent, was removed byBoris Yeltsinafter theconstitutional crisis of 1993. He returned to power in 1996, subsequently improving relations withMoscowand campaigning forVladimir Putin; he was reelected in 2000, though with only a plurality (29 percent) of votes cast. The current president is agrobusinessman Nikolay Denin of theUnited Russiaparty; he won office in 2004 only after Lodkin’s name was removed from the ballot days before the election. No longer backed by the Communists, Lodkin has declared himself an independent in the lead-up to the poll, but was barred by a court injunction from running due to the “use of administrative resources, bribing voters, and illegally running for a third term.”