Opolia

elevated, well-drained sections of the East European Plain constituting a particular type of landscape within the sub-zones of the southern taiga and of mixed and broad-leaved forests. Opol’ia are usually surrounded by sandy and wooded marshy depressions called poles’ia. They have blanket and loesslike loams and fertile gray forest soils. Opol’ia are often entirely plowed up and densely populated. The best-known opol’ia in the European USSR are the Novgorod-Severskii, Starodub, Trub-chevsk, Briansk, Meshchovsk, Kasimov, and Iur’ev opol’ias.