In old times, the word “kalooga” meant “ swamp”. Its conjugates are “loozha – puddle” and “kaloozhnitsa – cowslip”. There is an anecdote about the origin of the name of the city: they say that khan Uga founded Kaluga by driving a kol – (stake) into the ground. Why letter “o” in kol turned into “a” remains a mystery. Anyway, the historians still don’t know the exact date of the establishing of the city. That is why 1371 is considered the starting point, which is the year Kaluga was first mentioned in a written source. That document is the letter by Algirdas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, to Philotheus, Byzantine Patriarch, in which he complains that the Prince of Moscow took Kaluga from him by force. However, several fortified ancient settlements dated 4-10 centuries were found on the city site, which shows that Kaluga is in fact much older.In the beginning of the 16th century, Kaluga became the capital of apanage principality for a short time, the first and the last ruler of which was Semyon Ivanovich Kaluzhsky, the son of Ivan III, the Grand Prince of Moscow. At the same time, the city together with Tula, Kolomna and Ryazan became forward defense line protecting the Russian state from Tatar raids. During the Time of Troubles, Kaluga was the residence of both False Dmitries and one of the first cities to acknowledge False Dmitry as sovereign. Unfortunately, almost none of the buildings of that time survived. Even Kaluga Kremlin did not live to these days. Today, there is an urban recreational park there.In the 18th century, Kaluga became the center of guberniya - governorate, and during the Patriotic War of 1812 it was the biggest rear base for the Russian army. During World War II from October to December 1941, Kaluga was occupied by fascist troops. Kaluga region with Kaluga as the centre was established in July 1994.Today, Kaluga looks like a classic provincial Russian town. It explains the love of film-makers for this city. More than 60 feature films and TV-series were made in Kaluga: Moscow-Cassiopeia; Carnival; White Bim Black Ear; Love, Russian style and many others.The most famous person from Kaluga is Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, theoretician of cosmonautics, and the most famous sight is the Museum of the History of Cosmonautics. That is why Kaluga is often called “the cradle of cosmonautics”. Space theme is always present here, even the flag and the coat of arms of the city bear the picture of the first Soviet space satellite.