302 



EUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



and here are printed many Hebrew works. At the junction of the two main 

 head-streams of the Desna stands Bransk, an important place in the government 

 of Orel, or Orol, with an arsenal and gun foundry. It lies on the main line 

 of railway connecting Smolensk with Orel, and like Trubshovsk, lower down 

 the river, which is here navigable, does a large transit trade in cereals and 

 cattle. Sevsk is memorable in Russian history as the place where the false 

 Demetrius entrenched himself in 1G04, and whence he marched at the head 

 of refugees and Cossacks to the conquest of Moscow. Other towns in the 

 Desna valley are Starodûh, a centre of the Raskolnik sectarians; Pogar ; and 



Fig. 154:. — Limits of the Region op Forests and Bare Plateaux. 

 Scale 1 : 710,000. 



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Oid Teh 



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27'20- 



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Novgorod- Severskiy , the name of the latter still preserving the memory of the old 

 Severanes. 



To the same basin belongs about half of the government of Kursk, whose 

 chief town lies at a point where the river is joined by two of its tributaries. 

 It is a large Great Russian town, connected by railway with Kiev, Moscow, and 

 Kharkov. Its fair was formerly the most frequented in the south, and still does 

 a business of about 4,000,000 roubles. In the government of Chernigov are the 

 important towns of Glukliov, a large corn mart, and Konotop, formerly a fortress, 

 now a thriving commercial town. In the same district are Batiirin, with the ruins 

 of a fine castle, and Shosfka, where is prepared the saltpetre for all the State 

 powder-mills in Russia. Cher)iigor, capital of the government, belonged to the 



