Where is it? Ryazan Oblast, or region, is located in the center of the European side of Russia, southeast of Moscow Oblast. It is also bordered by the oblasts of Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Penza, Tambov, Lipetsk and Tula, and the Republics of Mordovia. Ryazan is in the Moscow time zone .

What's the biggest city? Ryazan, which accounts for 535,000 of the region's 1.2 million people, according to the 2002 census. Kasimov, Sasovo, Skopin and Ryazhsk are its other large cities. The city of Ryazan is more than 900 years old, making it one of the oldest in Russia. The oldest extant parts of its kremlin, the citadel at the center of the city, date to the 15th century.

Who lives here? Overwhelmingly, ethnic Russians.

What do they do here? There is a highly diversified industrial base that ranges from engineering and metalworking, to industrial and agricultural machinery, electronics and furniture. Much of the region's land remains devoted to agriculture, and its large deposits of clay help it manufacture large amounts of bricks and tiles.

Does it have any English-language news sources? None that I have found.

How do I see what it looks like? Flickr has more than 3,000 photos, ranging from the Ryazan kremlin and its industry.

How do I get here? Ryazan is just three hours by train from Moscow, and there is a modern highway from the capital.

Which adoption agencies work here? Gladney Center for Adoption. A U.K.-based charity called ThePromise works with special needs children in the region's orphanages.

Who has been here? . Adoption.com members Fred_MSP, whose family includes a son adopted from Ryazan in 2004, and nancyral, whose daughter hails from the region. Member Sue64 is now registered in Ryazan and Chuvashia.

Truly trivia: Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born here in 1849. If the name doesn't ring a bell, you probably didn't take Psych 101 in college. Pavlov dropped out of studies for the priesthood to enter the nascent field of natural sciences. He began investigating conditional reflexes through a series of famous experiments with dogs (which may or may not have used a bell to signal the food's impending arrival) and won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.

Need more information? "Way To Russia" hasn't gotten here yet. Luckily there is a great chunk of history on the region at Kommersant. The weather in Ryazan is fairly temperate by Russian standards.