The Grodno region is located north-west of Grodno oblast. It was founded on January 15, 1940. The area is 2.7 thousand square kilometers. Population – 58.6 thousand people. Urban population accounts for 19%. Average density – 26 people per one square kilometer. The centre of the region is the town of Grodno. The region includes the town of Skidel, the settlement of Sopotskin, 383 villages and 14 village Soviets.
The major part of the territory is covered by the Neman lowland; the Grodno upland is in the west. The relief is hilly-flat. The altitude – 100-170 meters. The highest point – 247 meters (near the village of Koptevka).
Rivers: the Neman with the tributaries Svisloch, Lasosna, Chernaya Gancha, Kotra. The Augustow Canal connects the Neman with Bebzha (the Visla river basin). Lakes: Beloye, Rybnitsa, Molochnoye, Kalnitsa, Verovskoye. Forests: spruce, coniferous and birch. Forests cover 31.7% of the territory of the region (a big forest tract of the Grodno Puscha to the north-east). Soils are sod-podzol, bogged and peat and moory. Bogs account for 2.5% of the total area of the region (bogs Svyatoe, Mostki-Nivische, Zakrevschina). There are several reserves on the territory of the region: a landscape reserve Ozery and biological reserves Gozhevsky and Sapotskinsky. Landscape sites: sand, gravel and pebble conglomerate Prinemanskiy, geologic outcrops Kolodeznyi Rov and Rovets.
The total area of farmland is 117,000 hectares, of them 20,900 hectares have been drained up. There are 12 kolkhozes, five sovkhozes four agricultural companies and four poultry factories in the region. It specializes in animal husbandry (cattle, hog and horse breeding), cultivation of beetroot, potato and other vegetables, grain.
Companies: food industry (Skidel Sugar Factory, production of tinned meat and vegetables, butter, cheese, starch), woodworking industry (furniture, sawn timber, finish), fuel industry (peat briquette), production of building materials (tiles, reinforced concrete articles).
Among the major railways and motorways crossing the region are railways from Vilnius to Bialystok via Grodno and from Grodno to Mosty, motorways from Grodno to Bialystok, Druskininkai, Ostryna, Lida, Bolshaya Berestovitsa, Volkovysk.
There are 23 secondary, 20 basic and six primary schools, 11 music schools, 26 pre-school facilities, 41 clubs, 49 libraries, 55 medical establishments, two sanatoria with schools, vocation college #199, children’s sport school.
Specimen of Architecture: St. Thecla’s Roman-Catholic Church (1854) in the village of Adamovichi, the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (1881) in the village of Golovachi, a Roman-Catholic Church (19th century) in the village of Galynka, a Roman-Catholic Church (19th – 20th centuries) in the village of Gozha, the Church of the Annunciation in the village of Zhitomlya (17th – 18th centuries), St. Mary’s Roman-Catholic Church in the village of Zarechanka (early 20th century), St. Trinity Roman-Catholic Church in the village of Indura (1825), a Church of Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the village of Komatovo (1844), St. Nicola’s Church (1822) in Sviloch, a Palace and Gardens in the village of Svyatsk (18th – 19th century), a Church of Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the village of Selivanovka (1844), a hydraulic engineering facility Augustow Canal (19th century), a memorial to Soviet soldiers in the village of Vertilishki, the village of Kvasovka is an ancient arts-and-crafts centre (weaving, wood carving).
