Voronezh Oblast is in Russia's Chernozemye region, bordering Ukraine to the southwest, Belgorod Oblast to the west, Kursk Oblast to the northwest, Lipetsk Oblast to the north, Tambov Oblast to the northeast, Ulyanovsk Oblast to the northeast, Volgograd Oblast to the east, and Rostov Oblast to the south.

Cities

• Voronezh — the regional capital is a major cultural, economic, and transit hub for the surrounding regions and a center of the contemporary Russian Communist movement (due to very high unemployment); be sure to visit the excellent collection of Western and Russian art at the Kramskoy Museum; the city is also the birthplace of many famous Russians, including writers Ivan Bunin and Andrei Platonov (the poet Osip Mandelshtam was exiled here also), as well as the great Russian painter Ivan Kramskoi
• Divnogorye — a village on the Don River by the Divnogorye Museum-Preserve, an open air museum full of interesting sites, including the ruins of a chalk fortress of the Jewish Khazar Khaganate and a Cossack cave monastery and church, cut from the side of Chalk cliffs and surrounded by natural chalk pillars
• Khrenovoye — a village famous for its Orlov Stallion rearing stud farm
• Kostenki — a small village surrounded by early Stone Age archaeological sites containing the huts and burial sites of mammoth hunters

Other destinations

• Khopersky Nature Reserve
• Voronezh Biosphere Reserve — a successful preservation story of the last European Beaver population; on-site natural history museum

Understand

Voronezh is considered the heart of the "Black Earth Region," a rich soiled region in the south of Central Russia. In its post-Soviet history it has also come to be known as the heart of Russia's "Red Belt," the center of contemporary Russian communism, owing to its high unemployment levels. An interesting read for visitors is Black Earth City, an account written by Charlotte Hobson, a foreign student visiting the capital in 1991–92.

Talk

Chances are high that you will need either some knowledge of Russian or a competent guide in order to travel outside of Voronezh.

Get in

Voronezh Airport is served by flights from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Munich, Prague, and Yerevan. Voronezh, being the major rail hub between Central and Southern Russia, is also easily accessible by train from Kiev, Moscow, Rostov-on-Don and other major cities in these regions.