Orenburg

Orenburg, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, on the Ural river; connected by rail with Samara (262 m.), and since 5905 with Tashkent (1150 m.). Pop. (1900) 65,906, of whom about 30% were Tatars, Jews, Bashkirs, &c. The town now includes the former suburbs of Golubinaya and Novaya. It is an episcopal see of the Orthodox Greek Church and the headquarters of the hetman of the Orenburg Cossacks. To a "barter house," 3 m. from the town, the camel caravans bring carpets, silks, cottons, lambskins, dried fruits, &c., from Bokhara, Khiva, Kokand and Tashkent,. to be bartered against the textiles, metallic goods, sugar and manufactured wares of Russia. From 20,000 to 100,000 horses,. 40,000 to 160,000 cattle, and 450,000 to 750,000 sheep are also sold every year at the barter house. Formerly most of these were sent alive to Russia; now some 200,000 head of cattle and sheep are killed every year, and exported in cold-storage wagons. Cattle are also bought by wandering merchants in the Steppe provinces and Turkestan. Every year many tons of tallow,. hams, sausages, butter, cheese and game are exported by rail to Samara. Besides these, nearly a million hides and sheepskins,, goat and astrakhan skins, as well as wool, horsehair, bristles, down,, horns, bones, &c., are exported. There are two cadet corps, a theological seminary, seminaries for Russian and Kirghiz teachers,, a museum, branches of the Russian Geographical Society and the Gardening Society, and a military arsenal.