Briansk Forest

a large forest tract located near the city of Briansk on the left bank of the Desna River and its tributaries—the Snezheti, Bolva, and others—on the border between the taiga and forest-steppe zones. Its total area is approximately 100,000 hectares (1970). The Briansk Forest consists of pine, fir, and broad-leaved tracts. The predominant and chief kind of tree is pine; birch groves have appeared mostly over felled pine groves and aspen groves over felled fir and broad-leaved growths. The soils are of varying degrees of podzolization, formed mainly on sandy fluvioglacial deposits and country rocks—sandstones, cretaceous rocks, and marls. The soil is rich in phosphorus and potassium, which determine the high productivity of the forests.

On the initiative of G. F. Morozov and M. M. Orlov, the Briansk Experimental Forestry Station was organized in 1906 in the Briansk Forest, which is used by the Briansk Technological Institute as a training and experimental forestry station.

During the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) the Briansk Forest was one of the most important bases of the Soviet partisan movement. Detachments and units of the Orlov, Briansk, Kursk, and Byelorussian partisans operated here. The Ukrainian partisan units of S. A. Kovpak, A. F. Fedorov, and A. N. Saburov were based here. The fascist German occupiers destroyed many valuable plantings of the Briansk Forest. After the war measures were taken for its restoration.