YEVREYSKAYA

also spelled Evreiskaia, also called Birobidzhan autonomous oblast (province) in Khabarovsk kray (region), far eastern Russia, occupying an area of 13,900 sq mi (36,000 sq km) in the basin of the middle Amur River. Most of the oblast consists of level plain, with extensive swamps, patches of swampy forest, and grassland on fertile soils, now largely plowed up. In the north and northwest are the hills of the Bureya Range and the Lesser Khingan, clothed in dense forest of spruce, pine, fir, and larch. Winters are dry and severely cold, summers hot and moist. Although established in 1934 theoretically as a home for Jews in the Soviet Union, no mass Jewish migration developed, and Russian and Ukrainian settlers heavily outnumber the Jews. Most of the population live along the two main lines of communication, the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the navigable Amur. Timber working is well developed at centres on the railway, and tin is mined at Khingansk. Iron ore has not been exploited. Agriculturechiefly the cultivation of wheat, rye, oats, soybeans, sunflowers, and vegetablesis concentrated in the Amur plain; fishing, especially for salmon, is important on the rivers. Birobidzhan (q.v.) is the administrative centre. Pop. (1991 est.) 220,200.