MORDVINIA

republic in Russia, situated in the middle Volga River basin. The capital is Saransk (q.v.). Mordvinia occupies a gently rolling plain crossed by the broad, shallow, often swampy valley of the Moksha River in the west and the Sura, a direct tributary of the Volga, in the east. The climate is markedly continental. The average January temperature is 10 F (-12 C), but cold air from the north can drop the temperature to -40 F (-40 C). The average in July is 68 F (20 C). Annual rainfall (summer maximum) ranges from 20 inches (500 mm) in the west to 16 inches in the east; it is extremely variable, however, and periods of drought occur. Most of the original vegetation, including mixed forests (oak, lime, maple, ash, and birch) and wooded steppe, has been cleared for agriculture. Soils are usually of the leached or degraded chernozem (black earth) or gray forest type, with belts of floodplain meadows along the rivers. The Mordvin, representing almost one-third of the republic's population, are of Finno-Ugric origin and related to the nearby Mari and Udmurts. They are composed of two groups distinguished by language differences: the Erzya Mordvin and the Moksha Mordvin. Russians, who now constitute more than three-fifths of the population, penetrated the area as early as the 12th century, but it was not until the overthrow of the Kazan khanate, or empire, in the late 16th and 17th centuries that the area came under Russian control. In 1930 Mordvinia was made an autonomous oblast (province), and from 1934 to 1991 it was an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union. The chief cities are Saransk, Ardatov, Ruzayevka, and Kovylkino. Mainly agricultural, Mordvinia plants much of its cropped area in grainswinter rye, spring wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat, and corn (maize) for silage. Hemp, makhorka (tobacco), and vegetables are also grown. Draft horses are bred, beekeeping is widespread, and some raising of sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs is carried on. Industrial activity includes timber working, tannin extraction, metalworking, light manufacturing, food and textile processing, cement making, and the production of paper, wooden crates, and prefabricated housing materials. Machine-building enterprises produce instruments and heavy engineering, electrical, and chemical equipment. Peat is dug to supply the Saransk peat-burning electric-power station. Natural gas from the SaratovNizhny Novgorod pipeline that passes through Saransk is the basis of a developing chemical industry. The Moscow-Ryazan-Samara trunk railway crosses the republic from west to east, while lines from Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan to Penza traverse it from north to south. Highways link Saransk with Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk (formerly Simbirsk), and Penza. Area 10,100 square miles (26,200 square km). Pop. (1995 est.) 959,000.