Rostov oblast

Rostov oblast. An administrative territory set up on 13 September 1937 in the southwestern Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (today Russian Federation). It encompasses most of the former Oblast of the Don Cossack Host, except for the western part, which belongs to Ukraine, and a northeastern part, which belongs to Volgograd oblast. The area of Rostov oblast is 100,967 sq km, and its population in 2018 was 4,220,452, of which 68 percent was urban. The oblast has 43 raions. Its capital is Rostov-na-Donu. The western and southern regions of the oblast are Ukrainian ethnic territory, where the main city is Tahanrih. The western and southern regions of the oblast are Ukrainian ethnic territory, where the main city is Tahanrih. In the 1920s, Ukrainization was partly introduced in this region, primarily in public education. In Tahanrih Ukrainian instructors worked in the department of people's education and in the union of school workers. But in the mid-1930s the Ukrainization campaign was stopped. The national composition of the region has changed considerably since the early 1930s. The proportion of Ukrainians has declined rapidly because Ukrainians have lacked national rights within the Russian SFSR and then in the Russian Federation and they have become linguistically and nationally Russified. (For the history of the oblast see Don region.)

[This article was updated in 2019.]