Vyazma
Encyclopedia
Vyazma is a town and the administrative center of Vyazemsky District
Vyazemsky District, Smolensk Oblast
Vyazemsky District, Smolensk Oblast is an administrative and municipal district , one of the 25 in Smolensk Oblast, Russia....

 of Smolensk Oblast
Smolensk Oblast
Smolensk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its area is . Population: -Geography:The administrative center of Smolensk Oblast is the city of Smolensk. Other ancient towns include Vyazma and Dorogobuzh....

, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, located on the Vyazma River
Vyazma River
Vyazma River is a river in the Smolensk Oblast in Russia. It is a left tributary of the Dnieper. The length of the river is 147 km. The area of its basin is 1350 km². In ancient times, the Vyazma River was a part of a route that connected the upper basins of the Volga, Oka, and Dnieper...

, about halfway between Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...

 and Mozhaysk
Mozhaysk
Mozhaysk is a town and the administrative center of Mozhaysky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, located to the west from the Russian capital, on the historic road leading to Smolensk and then to Poland. Population:...

. Throughout its turbulent history, the city defended western approaches to the city of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. Population: 44,000 (1970).

It is served by Vyazma Airport
Vyazma Airport
Vyazma Airport is an airport in Russia located 9 km southeast of Vyazma. It currently serves general aviation.During the Cold War it was a Soviet Anti-Air Defense base and was home to 45 IAP flying MiG-23P interceptor aircraft...

.

Medieval history and monuments

Vyazma was first mentioned in a chronicle
Chronicle
Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...

 under the year of 1230, although it is believed that it is a much older settlement. The town was named after the river, whose name was from Russian vyaz 'bog, swamp.' At that time, the town belonged to a lateral branch of the Rurikid House of Smolensk. In 1403, the local princes were expelled by Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

ns to Moscow, where they took the name of Princes Vyazemsky. The most notable among them were Pyotr Vyazemsky
Pyotr Vyazemsky
Prince Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky or Petr Andreevich Viazemsky was a leading personality of the Golden Age of Russian poetry.- Biography :...

, an intimate friend of the poet Alexander Pushkin and a poet himself, and Sophie Viazemski, a French writer, for a time married to Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....

.

In 1494, Vyazma was captured by Muscovy and turned into a fortress, of which but a single tower remains. Two important abbeys were embellished with stone churches, including a rare three-tented church dedicated to Our Lady of Smolensk (Hodegetria
Hodegetria
A Hodegetria — or Virgin Hodegetria — is an iconographic depiction of the Theotokos holding the Child Jesus at her side while pointing to Him as the source of salvation for mankind...

) and consecrated in 1638 except Polish occupation between 1611–1634. A barbican church of the same abbey dates back to 1656, and the city's cathedral was completed by 1676. Other churches are designed mostly in baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 style.

Battles of Vyazma

During the Patriotic War of 1812, there was a battle between the retreating French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 army (up to 37,000 troops) and the Russian army (25,000 men) near Vyazma on October 22, 1812. The vanguard of the Russian army under the command of Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages where the title of Lieutenant General was held by the second in command on the battlefield, who was normally subordinate to a Captain General....

 Mikhail Miloradovich
Mikhail Andreyevich Miloradovich
Mikhail Andreyevich Miloradovich , spelled Miloradovitch in contemporary English sources was a Russian general prominent during the Napoleonic Wars. He entered military service on the eve of the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–1790 and his career advanced rapidly during the reign of Paul I...

 and a Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

 unit of General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 Matvey Platov attacked the rearguard corps of Marshal
Marshal
Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...

 Louis Nicolas Davout
Louis Nicolas Davout
Louis-Nicolas d'Avout , better known as Davout, 1st Duke of Auerstaedt, 1st Prince of Eckmühl, was a Marshal of France during the Napoleonic Era. His prodigious talent for war along with his reputation as a stern disciplinarian, earned him the title "The Iron Marshal"...

 east of Vyazma and cut off his retreat. Owing to the intervention of Eugène de Beauharnais
Eugène de Beauharnais
Eugène Rose de Beauharnais, Prince Français, Prince of Venice, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy, Hereditary Grand Duke of Frankfurt, 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg and 1st Prince of Eichstätt ad personam was the first child and only son of Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais and Joséphine Tascher de la...

 and Józef Antoni Poniatowski
Józef Antoni Poniatowski
Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski was a Polish leader, general, minister of war and army chief, who became a Marshal of France.-Early Austrian years and war with Turkey:...

, Davout managed to break through the Russian army's encirclement. The French army's attempts, however, to hold the heights near Vyazma and the city itself were unsuccessful. By the evening of October 22, the Russians seized Vyazma, which had been set on fire by the French. The French lost 6,000 men during the battle; 2,500 soldiers were taken prisoners
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...

. The Russians lost around 2,000 men.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945, Vyazma became a battlefield between the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 and the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 during the Battle of Moscow
Battle of Moscow
The Battle of Moscow is the name given by Soviet historians to two periods of strategically significant fighting on a sector of the Eastern Front during World War II. It took place between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort frustrated Hitler's attack on Moscow, capital of...

. It became the centre of a Red Army pocket after it was encircled by the 3rd and 4th Panzer armies. Vyazma was occupied by the German army between October 7, 1941 and March 12, 1943. The city was mostly destroyed and then rebuilt after the war. American war correspondent Quentin Reynolds
Quentin Reynolds
Quentin James Reynolds was a journalist and World War II war correspondent.As associate editor at Collier's Weekly from 1933 to 1945, Reynolds averaged twenty articles a year...

 visited Vyazma shortly after the German retreat and gave an account of the destruction of the city in his book The Curtain Rises, in which he stated that its population was reduced from 60,000 to 716, with only three buildings remaining. The Nazis also established two concentration camps in the city, Dulag 184 and Dulag 230. About 80,000 people died there and were buried in mass graves. The victims included Jews, political officers, and POWs. ref

Modern Vyazma

Vyazma is a major railway junction
Junction (rail)
A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge.This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes , 'points' and signalling.one or two tracks each meet at a junction, a fairly simple layout of tracks suffices to...

, with connecting trains from Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, St.Petersburg, Kaluga
Kaluga
Kaluga is a city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River southwest of Moscow. Population: It is served by Grabtsevo Airport.-History:...

 and Bryansk
Bryansk
Bryansk is a city and the administrative center of Bryansk Oblast, Russia, located southwest of Moscow. Population: -History:The first written mention of Bryansk was in 1146, in the Hypatian Codex, as Debryansk...

. It is also located near the main M1 highway
M1 highway (Russia)
The Russian route M1 is a major trunk road that runs from Moscow through Smolensk before reaching the border with Belarus. The length is . The highway runs south of Odintsovo, Kubinka, Mozhaysk, Gagarin, north of Vyazma, through Safonovo and Yartsevo...

 between Moscow and Minsk.

The city's main industries are engineering, leather working, graphite products, and flax textiles.

In terms of education Vyazma has branches of the Moscow State Industrial University, the Smolensk Humanitarian University, the International Academy of Tourism (WF RMAT), and the Moscow State University of Technology and Management, as well as the Vyazemsky Polytechnic College.

The city football club, FK Vyazma, plays in the Amateur football league.

Aviation

The city of Vyazma is known in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 for the aviation-squadron Vyazma Russ which flies in Aero L-39 Albatros jet aircraft.

Further reading

Vinogradov, Ivan Pavlovich. (1890) Historical Sketch of Vyazma from ancient times until the XVII century. (Inclusive) (Исторический очерк города Вязьмы с древнейших времен до XVII в. (включительно)) at Runivers.ru in DjVu
DjVu
DjVu is a computer file format designed primarily to store scanned documents, especially those containing a combination of text, line drawings, and photographs. It uses technologies such as image layer separation of text and background/images, progressive loading, arithmetic coding, and lossy...

 and PDF formats

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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