This chapter presents history, economic statistics, and federal government directories of Kostroma Oblast. Kostroma Oblast is situated in the central part of the Eastern European Plain. It is bordered by the Oblasts of Vologda to the north, Kirov to the east, Nizhnii Novgorod and Ivanovo to the south and Yaroslavl to the west. The city of Kostroma was founded in the 12th century and became the base of the Gudunov family. Mikhail Romanov was proclaimed tsar at a monastery in the city in 1613. In 1993 the Regional Soviet supported the communist-dominated federal parliament in its defiance of President Boris Yeltsin, and was replaced by a new representative body, the Duma, which became dominated by the Kommunistichkaya Partiya Rossisskoi Federatsii. At elections to the Regional Duma, conducted on 10 October 2010, YeR obtained 50.0% of the votes cast on the basis of proportional representation.