TOURISM STRATEGY:

Tours to Tula and other Russian cities have been organized by the Alliance. Arrangements are made through local travel professionals and are offered at attractive rates. In a recent tour, a small group from the Capital Region visited Tula and delivered a citation, gifts, and monetary awards to Tula educational institutions as part of the Tula's 850th anniversary celebration.

 

TULA

Fly to Tula with Google Earth!  Download Google Earth from the link above then paste the following kmz file name into the Google Earth browser address window:  "Russia Province of Tula город Тула.kmz"

The ancient city of Tula rises above the banks of the Upa River 120 miles south of Moscow in the center of the Russian heartland. A large majority of the people of Tula are ethnic Russians. Tula is the capital city of one of the 38 Russian states (a large administrative region called an oblast) with a governor appointed by the Federal President. The City of Tula, with a population of 600,000, has a mayor elected by the local population. The Tula region is rich in agriculture and mining, especially coal and iron. Famous Russian writers Ivan Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy lived in the region. Tolstoy's estate, Yasnaya Polyana, lies six miles south of Tula.

Russian archival sources mention Tula as early as 1146. In the 1500's the city became a key component of the growing power of Moscow over its surrounding municipalities. Tula's strategic location in the center of coal and iron fields made it an armory and metal-working center for all of Russia.

In 1595 the first gun factory was established in Tula. Forty years later ironworks were created by the Dutch who, at the same time, were building foundries in New York. By 1712, Czar Peter the Great had made Tula into a center for small arms production in support of his effort to strengthen Russia as a European power. Tula has remained at the forefront of armaments and defense throughout Russian and Soviet history.

The city withstood a savage siege in the autumn of 1941 by the Nazis, but sustained serious damage to many historic buildings, churches and Tolstoy's estate at Yasnaya Polyana. Citizens of Tula, the Hero City, were credited with preventing the Nazis from entering Moscow.

The city has several excellent theaters and museums, including a military museum and a museum on the history of samovars. Samovars (tea brewers) made in Tula are known around the world.

 

ALBANY: and the Capital Region of New York State

Albany is the capital city of New York State. It was founded by the Dutch more than 300 years ago. Dutch explorers came up the Hudson River from New Amsterdam (now New York City) to trade with the local Indians. With three nearby cities, Troy, Schenectady, and Saratoga Springs, each with substantial suburban areas, Albany is today the political, cultural, and trade center of the Capital Region. Although Albany has a population of just over 100,000, the population of the metropolitan region is approximately 800,000.

The Capital Region is located at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, the latter being the beginning of the Erie Canal. The area has long been important in trade and transportation. At the dawn of the nineteenth century, the area now encompassing the Capital Region was one of the most populous in the United States because of important iron works and the lumber trade.

Today, government, higher education (including 13 colleges and universities) and health care and financial services are the largest employers in the area. The Capital Region is also home to the General Electric Company's Corporate R&D laboratories, a large steam turbine manufacturing facility and many small and medium-sized high-tech manufacturing companies. The region ranks in the top five metropolitan areas in US in Ph.D.s per capita.

The two largest universities in the area, the University at Albany, one of the four university centers of the State University of New York, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, are both active in sponsoring incubator facilities to create new businesses in the region. The Center for Economic Growth, a regional planning organization, predicts that high tech industries such as computer software, integrated circuits, micro-electronics and biomedical research and development will flourish in the Capital Region in the next decade.