Kaluga

Kaluga is a city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River 150km southwest of Moscow. Population:HistoryKaluga, founded in the mid-14th century as a border fortress on the southwestern borders of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, first appears in the historical record in chronicles in the 14th century as Koluga; the name comes from Old Russian kaluga - "bog, quagmire". In the Middle Ages Kaluga was a minor settlement owned by the Princes Vorotynsky. The ancestral home of these princes lies southwest of the modern city.On 19 January 1777 the Kaluga drama theatre opened its first theatrical season, established with the direct participation of the Governor-General M. N. Krechetnikov.Kaluga is connected to Moscow by a railway line and by the ancient roadway, the Kaluga Road (now partly within Moscow (as Starokaluzhskoye Shosse - the Old Kaluga Highway), partly the A101 road). This road offered Napoleon his favored escape route from the Moscow trap in the fall of 1812. But General Kutuzov repelled Napoleon's advances in this direction and forced the retreating French army onto the old Smolensk road, previously devastated by the French during their invasion of Russia.