Mtsensk

a city under oblast jurisdiction and the center of Mtsensk Raion, Orel Oblast, RSFSR. It is situated on the Zusha River, a tributary of the Oka. The city has a railroad station on the Orel-Tula line, 49 km northeast of Orel, and it is intersected by the Moscow-Simferopol’ Highway. Population, 28,000 (1970).

Mtsensk is first mentioned in the chronicles under the year 1147 as M’chensk, a town in the Chernigov Principality. In 1320 it was annexed to Lithuania. In the early 16th century it was incorporated into the Russian state, and in 1778 it became a district administrative center.

Mtsensk’s industries include a plant producing secondary nonferrous metals, an aluminum-casting plant (a branch of the Likhachev Moscow Automobile Plant), a factory producing machinery for public utilities, a plant manufacturing feed antibiotics, a brickyard, a vegetable-canning combine, a meat-packing combine, a garment factory, and a furniture factory. Nearby is a large flower-growing sovkhoz. The city has an evening technicum specializing in metallurgy. I. S. Turgenev’s country estate, Spasskoe-Lutovinovo, now a museum, is located 10 km north of Mtsensk.