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Oryol Region in 3 Russian words

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Oryol Region is the birthplace of many outstanding Russian writers and poets: Ivan Turgenev, Afanasy Fet and Mikhail Prishvin, just to name a few. Here are three of its main symbols.

1. БИЗОН (Bison)

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These majestic animals were once mercilessly hunted and, today, they are listed in the Red Book of endangered species. The largest population of bison in Russia lives in the Oryol Polesie National Park in Oryol Oblast. Today, there are more than 700 of them.

2. ИВАН ТУРГЕНЕВ (Ivan Turgenev)

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This great Russian writer was born in Oryol on November 9, 1818 and spent his childhood there. In addition, Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, his mother's estate, was located just 70 km from the city. It is in the Oryol area that the events of the stories from Turgenev's ‘Sketches of a Hunter’ cycle take place.

3. САБУРОВСКАЯ КРЕПОСТЬ (Saburovskaya Fortress)

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This is not a fortress in the classical sense, but a fence of the Kamensky Estate in the village of Saburovo. Mikhail Kamensky built it at the end of the 18th century as a “monument to the glory of Russian arms”. The fortress looked impressive: four-meter walls a meter thick and a row of 15-meter towers, of which only four remain today.