Ivanovo is a Russian city situated in the central part of the East European plain. ll the rivers pertain to the basin of Volga. The main rivers here are Volga with its tributaries. There are also more than 200 lakes in Ivanovo. Ivanovskaya oblast was formed on January 14, 1929. The center of the region is Ivanovo founded in 1871. Such cities and towns as Ivanovo, Kineshma, Shuya, Vichuga, Furmanov, Teykovo, Rodniki, Yuzha are considered the centres of the cotton industry. The woodworking industry is highly developed hereto (manufacture of details for the textile industry, houses and furniture). Ivanovo is proud of its art homecraft centres in Palekh and Kholuy. There are the Museum of the Tsvetayevs and the museum Levitan in Ples. Ivanovo is known for its theatres such as the Drama Theatre, the Musical Theatre and the Kineshma Drama Theatre named after A.N. Ostrovsky being the oldest provincial theatre of Russia opened on December 26, 1897. Its birth is connected with the great playwright who devoted more than 20 years to Kineshma. Here he worked as a Justice of the Peace and also studied local folklore, ethnography and dialects. There are lots of museums in the city. They are the Arts Museum, the State Local Lore Museum named after D.G.Burylin, the Ples State Hictorical, Architectural and Arts Museum, the State Museum of Palekh Arts, the Kineshma State Arts and Historical Museum and so on.