Ryazan: Home to Russia's Stonehenge

Ryazan, a half-million city about 196km southeast of Moscow, is mostly known for its military bases (perhaps 3-4% of the population is employed by the military). Perhaps not so ironic given that Ryazan was the first Russian city to meet the Mongols of Batu Khan (1237)- and was wiped out. Kommersant, as usual, provides good background on the city/region.

Given its military bases, its perhaps not surprising that a paratrooper general from the nationalist Rodina (motherland) party just won a gubernatorial election in the province (though the communist party is still strong in Ryazan (pic)). Or that an outfit called Incredible Adventures offers Russian Special Forces training to civilians.

And most of all, its perhaps not surprising that a Ryazan apartments was supposedly a target of Chechen bombs in 1999. I say supposedly because many Putin critics strongly assert that bombs were planted as a way for him to get elected (more here and here)


Stonehenge article

"(A) parallel can be drawn to Stonehenge, which is close to our
monument in terms of the erection date and initially also was made of wood,"
Ahmedov told Pravda. "However, no blood relationship could have existed between
the peoples who erected Stonehenge and the Ryazan observatory. The latter
evidently indicates the influence of (an) alien population (the Iranian forest
dwellers) from the South-East of the Eurasian steppe."

More here from Pravda and an earlier Pravda article

Beautiful photos of Ryazan and here as well