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Chuvashia, officially known as Chuvash Republic — Chuvashia, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is the homeland of the Chuvash people, a Turkic languages ethnic group. Its capital city is the city of Cheboksary. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 1,251,619.
The climate is moderately continental, with the average temperatures ranging from in January to in July. Annual precipitation varies between , but is uneven from one year to another. Natural resources include gypsum, sand, clay, sapropel deposits, phosphorite, and peat. There are oil and natural gas deposits, although their extraction has not yet been commercially pursued. Forests, mostly in the south along the Sura River, cover approximately 30% of the land.
During the Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria, the steppe-dwelling Suar migrated north, where Volga Finns tribes, such as the Mordvins and Mari people lived. The Chuvash claim to be the descendants of these Suars who assimilated with the Mari. In 1242, they became vassals of the Golden Horde. Later Mongol Empire and Tatars rulers did not intervene in local internal affairs as long as tribute was paid annually to Sarai. When the power of the Golden Horde began to diminish, local Mişär Tatar Murzas from Pyana River and Temnikov tried to govern the Chuvash area.
During Ivan the Terrible's war of conquest against the Khanate of Kazan, in August 1552, the Chuvash Orsai and Mari Akpar Tokari princes swore their loyalty to the Grand Duchy of Muscovy at Alatyr on the Sura River. Between 1650 and 1850, the Russian Orthodox Church sent Chuvash language-speaking missionaries to try to convert the Chuvash to the Orthodox faith. A group of these missionaries created a written Chuvash language. Most of the Chuvash who stayed in the area became Orthodox Christians, but some remained pagan.
On 15 May 1917, the Chuvash joined the Idel-Ural Movement and in December 1917 joined the short-lived Idel-Ural State, when an agreement was reached with Tatarstan representatives to draw the eastern border of Chuvashia at the Sviyaga River. Between 1918 and 1919, the Russian Civil War encompassed the area. This ended with victory for the Bolsheviks. To gain support from the local population, Lenin ordered the creation of a Chuvash state within the Russian SFSR. On 24 June 1920, the Chuvash Autonomous Oblast was formed, which was transformed into the Chuvash ASSR in April 1925.
During the Soviet Union period, the high authority in the republic was shared between three persons: The first secretary of the Chuvashia CPSU Committee (who in reality had the biggest authority), the chairman of the oblast Soviet (legislative power), and the Chairman of the Republic Executive Committee (executive power). Since 1991, CPSU lost all the power, and the head of the Republic administration, and eventually the governor was appointed/elected alongside elected regional parliament.
The Charter of Republic of Chuvashia is the fundamental law of the region. The State Council of the Chuvash Republic is the republic's regional standing legislative (representative) body. The highest executive body is the Republic's Government, which includes territorial executive bodies such as district administrations, committees, and commissions that facilitate development and run the day to day matters.
The capital and largest city of Chuvashia is Cheboksary, with a population of around 464,000 as of 2010. Cheboksary is situated mostly on the southern bank of the Volga in the northern part of the republic (one northern bank district was added in the second part of the 20th century), approximately east of Moscow. Nearby to the east is the next largest city, Novocheboksarsk, with a population of 124,000 as of 2010.
| 1970 | 1,227 | 22,465 | 10,993 | 11,472 | 18.3 | 9.0 | 9.3 | |
| 1975 | 1,266 | 22,956 | 12,450 | 10,506 | 18.1 | 9.8 | 8.3 | |
| 1980 | 1,302 | 22,612 | 13,908 | 8,704 | 17.4 | 10.7 | 6.7 | |
| 1985 | 1,311 | 24,385 | 13,913 | 10,472 | 18.6 | 10.6 | 8.0 | |
| 1990 | 1,339 | 21,116 | 13,545 | 7,571 | 15.8 | 10.1 | 5.7 | 2.12 |
| 1991 | 1,342 | 19,113 | 13,459 | 5,654 | 14.2 | 10.0 | 4.2 | 1.96 |
| 1992 | 1,346 | 16,673 | 14,141 | 2,532 | 12.4 | 10.5 | 1.9 | 1.72 |
| 1993 | 1,347 | 14,410 | 16,876 | −2,466 | 10.7 | 12.5 | −1.8 | 1.48 |
| 1994 | 1,345 | 14,498 | 18,003 | −3,505 | 10.8 | 13.4 | −2.6 | 1.48 |
| 1995 | 1,345 | 13,842 | 17,727 | −3,885 | 10.3 | 13.2 | −2.9 | 1.41 |
| 1996 | 1,343 | 13,542 | 16,880 | −3,338 | 10.1 | 12.6 | −2.5 | 1.37 |
| 1997 | 1,341 | 12,822 | 16,762 | −3,940 | 9.6 | 12.5 | −2.9 | 1.30 |
| 1998 | 1,339 | 13,300 | 15,957 | −2,657 | 9.9 | 11.9 | −2.0 | 1.34 |
| 1999 | 1,337 | 12,129 | 17,997 | −5,868 | 9.1 | 13.5 | −4.4 | 1.22 |
| 2000 | 1,331 | 12,363 | 18,640 | −6,277 | 9.3 | 14.0 | −4.7 | 1.25 |
| 2001 | 1,324 | 11,986 | 18,980 | −6,994 | 9.1 | 14.3 | −5.3 | 1.20 |
| 2002 | 1,314 | 12,956 | 19,808 | −6,852 | 9.9 | 15.1 | −5.2 | 1.30 |
| 2003 | 1,304 | 13,171 | 19,978 | −6,807 | 10.1 | 15.3 | −5.2 | 1.32 |
| 2004 | 1,295 | 13,734 | 19,371 | −5,637 | 10.6 | 15.0 | −4.4 | 1.38 |
| 2005 | 1,286 | 13,133 | 19,682 | −6,549 | 10.2 | 15.3 | −5.1 | 1.32 |
| 2006 | 1,277 | 13,291 | 18,900 | −5,609 | 10.4 | 14.8 | −4.4 | 1.34 |
| 2007 | 1,269 | 14,835 | 18,642 | −3,807 | 11.7 | 14.7 | −3.0 | 1.50 |
| 2008 | 1,262 | 14,967 | 18,436 | −3,469 | 11.9 | 14.6 | −2.7 | 1.51 |
| 2009 | 1,257 | 16,103 | 17,492 | −1,389 | 12.8 | 13.9 | −1.1 | 1.63 |
| 2010 | 1,252 | 16,174 | 18,186 | −2,012 | 12.9 | 14.5 | −1.6 | 1.65 |
| 2011 | 1,249 | 16,165 | 16,923 | −758 | 12.9 | 13.6 | −0.7 | 1.67 |
| 2012 | 1,245 | 17,472 | 16,607 | 865 | 14.0 | 13.3 | 0.7 | 1.83 |
| 2013 | 1,242 | 17,351 | 16,324 | 1,027 | 14.0 | 13.1 | 0.9 | 1.85 |
| 2014 | 1,240 | 17,224 | 16,535 | 689 | 13.9 | 13.3 | 0.6 | 1.88 |
| 2015 | 1,237 | 17,138 | 16,266 | 872 | 13.8 | 13.1 | 0.7 | 1.91 |
| 2016 | 1,236 | 16,403 | 16,258 | 145 | 13.3 | 13.1 | 0.2 | 1.87 |
| 2017 | 1,233 | 13,947 | 15,571 | −1,624 | 11.3 | 12.6 | -1.3 | 1.65 |
| 2019 | 11,624 | 15,196 | −3,572 | 9.5 | 12.4 | -2.9 | ||
| 2020 | 11,305 | 18,845 | −7,540 | 9.3 | 15.5 | -6.2 |
| Chuvash people | 667,695 | 74.6% | 777,202 | 72.2% | 770,351 | 70.2% | 856,246 | 70.0% | 887,738 | 68.4% | 906,922 | 67.8% | 889,268 | 67.7% | 814,750 | 67.7% | 684,930 | 63.7% |
| Russians | 178,890 | 20.0% | 241,386 | 22.4% | 263,692 | 24.0% | 299,241 | 24.5% | 338,150 | 26.0% | 357,120 | 26.7% | 348,515 | 26.5% | 323,274 | 26.9% | 329,991 | 30.7% |
| Tatars | 22,635 | 2.5% | 29,007 | 2.7% | 31,357 | 2.9% | 36,217 | 3.0% | 37,573 | 2.9% | 35,689 | 2.7% | 36,379 | 2.8% | 34,214 | 2.8% | 29,092 | 2.7% |
| Mordvins | 23,958 | 2.7% | 22,512 | 2.1% | 23,863 | 2.2% | 21,041 | 1.7% | 20,276 | 1.6% | 18,686 | 1.4% | 15,993 | 1.2% | 13,014 | 1.1% | 7,707 | 0.7% |
| Others | 1,301 | 0.1% | 6,703 | 0.6% | 8,596 | 0.7% | 10,930 | 0.9% | 14,874 | 1.3% | 19,606 | 1.4% | 23,599 | 1.8% | 18,298 | 1.6% | 23,085 | 2.2% |
| 1 112,104 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity. It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group. | ||||||||||||||||||
Study of religion is compulsory for schoolchildren in Chuvashia. Of the students, approximately 76.9% are enrolled for Orthodox Studies, 16.0% for Secular Studies, 15.7% for World Religions Studies and 1.4% for Islamic Studies.
The republic is Russia's center for growing hops and is famous throughout the country for its long history of beer brewing. It is also a major center for electrical engineering, especially in the area of power transmission and . Other leading industries are metalworking, electricity generation, and chemical manufacturing. There are also large timber-working mills at Shumerlin.
The largest companies in the region include Khimprom Novocheboksarsk (revenues of $ million in 2017), Accond (confectionery maker$, million), Cheboksary Instrument-Making Plant ($ million), NPP EKRA (power engineering$, million).
Automobiles, trucks, and buses are the major forms of transportation, with the republic ranking fourth in highway density in all of Russia. Cheboksary is situated on one of the main highways of the Russian Federation leading from Moscow to the industrial areas of Tatarstan, the southern Ural Mountains, and Siberia. A recently completed bridge across the Volga River in the north connects the republic to the developed Ural and Volga Federal Districts. To the south, highways connect Chuvashia with Saratov and Volgograd. Extensive public and private bus systems connect all towns within the republic with each other and with the surrounding regions.
The standard speed of transportation of containerization by road is per day. The average time of delivery from Cheboksary to Moscow is 1.5 days; to Saint Petersburg, 2.5 days; and to Western Europe, 10 to 15 days.
The following lines serve railway traffic in the Chuvash Republic:
In addition to these lines, there are of gauge industrial lines running from Altyshevo station, on Alatyr-Kanash section, to Pervomaysky, located just west of Starye Aybesi in Alatyrsky District.
All railway lines in Chuvashia are operated by the MPS Gorky Railway Division. Steam locomotives were mostly replaced in 1970 by diesel locomotives and when the main Arzamas-Kanash-Sviyazhsk line was electrified, the diesel locomotives were replaced by electric ones.
The Arzamas-Kanash-Sviyazhsk line is a double track main line, while the others are single track lines. The 84 km (52 mi) Sviyazhsk-Kanash section was electrified in 1986, the 142 km (88 mi) Kanash-Sergach section in 1987.
In 1967, there were four daily passenger trains in both directions on the Alatyr-Kanash line. One of them was the semifast Sochi-Sverdlovsk-Sochi long-distance transit train, halting only at Alatyr, Buinsk, and Kanash. Cheboksary was connected by daily semifast passenger train to Moscow. The travel time was 17.30 hours for the 758 km (471 mi) journey. 21 express and passenger trains used the Arzamas-Kanash-Sviyazhsk main line in the summer high season in both directions. Of these, four did not halt in Chuvashia. Most of the remaining semifast trains stopped at Shumerlya, Piner, Burnary, and Kanash. Four pairs of semifast trains also stopped at Tyurmari. In the 1999–2000 timetable, 11 pairs of Moscow-Kanash-Kazan express trains stopped at Kanash. The Chuvashia 53/54 express trains between Moscow and Kanash took 11.23 hours, back 10.57 hours.
In addition to Russian gauge railways, there were six narrow-gauge railway lines: two short peat briquette industry lines at Severny and Sosnovka on the north side of the Volga, and four forest railways at Shumerlya, Atrat and Kirya. All opened in the 1930s. In 1965, their total length was :
All lines were closed in the economic uncertainty after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
There has been a resurgence of native Chuvash pride, with many people looking back to their Chuvash roots and exploring the culture and heritage and relearning the language. Most building signs, road signs, and announcements are in both Russian and Chuvash.
At present Chuvash Republic has six professional theaters:
and over 30 amateur theaters, a Philharmonic Society, an Academic Folk Song and Dance Group, an Academic Choir, a Chamber Orchestra, and some professional concert groups.
There are also more than 20 museums, exhibition halls and modern art galleries.
Chuvash Republic has more than 565 public libraries, the book collection being over 10 million units.
Monuments of Architecture
There are about 627 monuments of architecture in Chuvashia, including 54 of national importance: the Vvedensky Cathedral (1657), the Holy Trinity Monastery (1566), the Salt House, the houses of Chuvash famous merchants (Zeleischikov, Solovtsov, the Efremov family) (18th-19th century) in Cheboksary, the Tolmachev family house and Trinity Cathedral (18th century) in the town of Tsivilsk, the Burashnikov house in the town of Yadrin.
Surhuri () is the Chuvash people national holiday.
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