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KALUGA

Kaluga is a city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River 150 kilometers (93 mi) southwest of Moscow.

Kaluga was founded in the mid-14th century as a border fortress on the southwestern borders of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. It was first mentioned in chronicles in the 14th century as Koluga; the name is 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 is located southwest from the modern city.

Kaluga is connected to Moscow by a railway line and the ancient roadway, the Kaluga Road (now partly within Moscow (as Starokaluzhskoye Shosse), partly the A101 road). This road was the favored escape route from the Moscow trap for Napoleon 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.

On several occasions during the Russian Empire Kaluga was the residence of political exiles and prisoners such as the last Crimean khan Şahin Giray (1786), the Kyrgyz sultan Arigazi-Abdul-Aziz (1828), the Georgian princess Thecla (1834–1835), and the Avar leader Imam Shamil (1859–1868).

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