Aerial Footage. Tula (Russia)

Tula is a city in Russia, the administrative center of the Tula region and the city district, the city of Tula. Hero City (since 1976). Tula is located in the north of the Central Russian Upland on the banks of the Upa River, 193 km south of Moscow. The length of the city from north to south is 30 km, from west to east - 25 km. Tula was first mentioned in the Nikon Chronicle of the 16th century under 1146. On the territory of Tula, there are more than 300 objects of cultural heritage: these are monuments of architecture and town planning, history, works of monumental art, archeology. Tula is famous in three directions, rooted deeply in the history of the city: armory, samovar and gingerbread. Each of them is represented in the city by the Museum of Weapons, one of the largest in Russia, the Museum of Samovars and the Museum of Tula Gingerbread. Also, the city's hallmark is the Tula Kremlin, the oldest building in the city, an architectural monument of the 16th century. 14 km south-west of Tula is the Leo Tolstoy house-museum Yasnaya Polyana - a unique center of the historical and cultural life of Russia, associated with the name of the greatest writer and thinker of the XIX-XX centuries. Tula is one of the oldest cities in Russia. Since ancient times, this land was inhabited by the Slavic tribe of the Vyatichi. This is evidenced by the many barrows and settlements that have survived to this day. The Vyatichi hunted in the same way as many of their contemporaries: they cultivated the land, were engaged in craft, trade. During the first centuries of its existence, Tula did not differ in any way from other populated areas of this region. It was a small settlement fenced with a palisade - a prison, located on an island at the confluence of the Upa and Tulitsa rivers. By the middle of the 17th century, when the fortified border of the Russian state moved to the south, Tula was gradually turning from a fortress city into a commercial and industrial center. The development of the blacksmith craft, traditional for the city, was encouraged by the Moscow sovereigns, who needed their own iron and gun industries. The beginning of the state-owned rifle business can be considered 1595, when Tsar Fyodor I Ivanovich, having freed the Tula "self-made" blacksmiths from taxes and zemstvo duties, obliged them to make state-owned weapons. The first ironworks were built by the Dutchman A.D. Vinius 15 versts from Tula, in the village of Torkhovo on the Tulitsa River. Later, the companions of A. Vinius, P. Marselius and F. Akema, near Tula opened new factories that produced not only military, but also household metal products. From the end of the 17th century, the iron-making production of Tula passed into the hands of the enterprising and skillful gunsmith Nikita Demidov. Following Demidov, the Batashevs, Mosolovs and others are creating their own factories. At the beginning of the 18th century, handicraft production of weapons was replaced by factory production. By the decree of Peter I in 1712, the country's first state arms factory was built in Tula. Tula becomes a recognized center for the production of weapons and metal products, which were sold throughout Russia. Since 1797 Tula has been the center of the province. In the Patriotic War of 1812, Tula made a significant contribution to the defeat of Napoleonic troops. It was determined not only by the supply of weapons (in 1812-14 the city's gunsmiths supplied 600,000 rifles to the active army), but also by active participation in hostilities as part of the regular army and the people's militia. The Tula militias fought across Europe and entered Paris as part of the Russian army in March 1814. After the end of the war, a decline occurred at the Tula arms factories, which led to the emergence of new types of industries - samovar, harmonious. Samovars and accordions, created by the hands of Tula craftsmen, quickly gained worldwide fame and, along with the manufacture of weapons, determined the specialization of the Tula industry for a long time. Batashevsky samovars have become synonymous with samovars of the highest class. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, large enterprises of the metallurgical, metalworking, military and sugar industries appeared in Tula, which, together with the arms factory reconstructed in 1870-1873, were on a par with the largest industrial enterprises in Russia. Simultaneously with the large-scale, the handicraft industry also developed - hardware, samovar, harmonious, gingerbread production. According to the 1912-1913 census, the number of samovar factories in Tula was 50, with an annual production of 660,000 samovars.