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448 CHEREMIS—CHERKASSY
installations and the arsenal before evacuating the town, which
was taken by the U.S. 7th corps in June 1944. By October the
port was handling 200 tons of war material daily. The maritime
station was reopened in 1952.
(RA. H.; AN. J. R.)
CHEREMIS,
the name applied in the west, as it was in pre-
Soviet Russia, to a people, now totaling about 500,000, who speak
a language of the Finno-Ugric family. The people, however, refer
to themselves as Mari, a term which has been adopted by the
Soviet Russians and incorporated in the name of the Mari Autono-
mous Soviet Socialist Republic. Created on Dec. 5, 1936, this re-
public, with a Cheremis population in excess of 51%, is located in
the upper Volga basin; there are also some Cheremis in adjacent
regions, as well as nearly 100,000 in the Bashkir A.S.S.R.
The Cheremis language contains more than 1,000 Turkic loan-
words, borrowed from two languages: Volga-Bulgar and Tatar.
About half of them—the earlier layer—come from the language of
the forefathers of the present-day Chuvash. The Cheremis and
Chuvash have lived in a quasi-symbiotic relationship from about
A.D. 700 to this day, although the period of most intense influence
ended in 1326, when Tatar contacts became pressing. Tatar loans
date from 1236 to 1552; then Kazan fell and the area came increas-
ingly under the influence of Moscow. The process of Cheremis
assimilation to Russian civilization accelerated during the 17th
century, and the ever mounting symptoms of social and economic
change may be traced in many forms, including strong nativistic
movements.
The local group among the contemporary Cheremis is the
co-
operative village or kolkhoz; the principal source of subsistence
is agriculture combined with animal husbandry. Yoshkar-Ola, the
Mari capital, boasts of training schools in subjects such as ani-
mal husbandry, forestry, optics and papermaking, as well as fac-
tories and department stores.
See Thomas A. Sebeok, The Cheremis (1955); Thomas A. Sebeok
and Frances J. Ingemann, Studies in Cheremis: the Supernatural
(1956).
(T. A. Sb.)
CHEREMKHVO, a town of Irkutsk oblast of the Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, U.S.S.R., stands on the Trans-
Siberian railway, about 80 mi. N.W. of Irkutsk. Pop. (1959)
123,000. A branch line links Cheremkhovo to Svirsk on the
Angara river. The town is also on the Irkutsk-Krasnoyarsk motor
road. Founded in 1772 as a station on the Siberian Post road, the
town has developed as the chief mining centre of the Cheremkhovo
coal field, which is the largest in eastern Siberia, and extends for
about 150 mi. along the Trans-Siberian railway. There are also
heavy engineering and timberworking industries.
(R. A. F.)
CHEREPOVETS, a town of Vologda oblast in the Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, U.S.S.R., stands on the right
bank of the Sheksna river (70 mi. W. of Vologda), where it flows
into the vast Rybinsk reservoir of the Volga. Pop. (1959) 92,000.
The Sheksna is linked by the Marinsk waterway system to Lake
Onega and thus to the Baltic-White sea waterway, while Chere-
povets lies also on the Leningrad-Vologda railway. These excellent
communications led to the establishment there in 1955 of a large
integrated iron and steel works, using iron ore from the Kola pen-
insula and coal from Vorkuta. The slag from the works is used to
make thermo-insulating sheeting. Shipbuilding and repair and
timberworking, especially the production of veneer, are also car-
ried on.
(R. A. F.)
CHERIBON (TJREBON) is a city and residency of northeast
West Java province on the Java sea, Indon. Pop. (1957 est.) 2,917,009.
Although some Javanese live in the north, Cheribon is
Sundanese country, its eastern boundary dividing the Sundanese
from the Javanese territory of central Java. It has been for cen-
turies the centre of Islam in west Java, for it is there that the
Muslim power was strongly established as early as 1526, under
Gunung Djati, and much of the opposition to Dutch rule at a later
date came from this district. The northern half of the residency
is flat and marshy in places, while the southern half is mountainous.
Southwest of the city stands the huge volcano Tjaremai, clad with
virgin forest and plantations, and surrounded at its foot by rice
fields.
Sulfur and salt springs occur on the slopes of Tjaremai and
near Palimanan, where a cavernous hole exhales carbonic acid
gas.
The principal products of cultivation are tea, rice, tobacco,
essential oils, sugar, cinchona, cassava, peanuts and pulses. Cheribon
city and seaport has a good open roadstead and quay and ware-
house accommodation for lighters. It was formerly the residence
of the powerful sultans of Cheribon. Indramaju is another prin-
cipal town, and Kuningan, famous for a breed of horses, is a hill
resort (2,200 ft.). The residency was occupied by the Japanese from
1942 to 1945.
On Nov. 15, 1946, the Dutch-Indonesian pact (the Cheribon, or
Linggaadjati, agreement) recognizing the Republic of Indonesia
was drafted at Linggadjati, a resort village 13 mi. S. of Cheribon
port. See JAVA: History.
CHERIMOYA (CHERIMOVER or CHIRIMOVA), the fruit of
Annona cherimola, a medium-sized tree of the family Annonaceae,
originally from the Andes of southern Ecuador and northern Peru,
now cultivated commercially, on a small scale, in California,
Mexico, Chile, Argentina, southern Spain, Queensland and several
other regions. Throughout the highlands of tropical America it is
a favourite dooryard tree and the fruit is often seen in local
markets.
Its abundance of large, ovate, rich green leaves makes the tree a
handsome one, while the fruit, which matures from September to
January in the northern hemisphere, was termed by Mark Twain
"deliciousness itself." It is oval to round in form, sometimes
weighing 2 to 3 lb., though usually less, pale-green in colour with
a thin skin enclosing creamy white flesh in which numerous seeds
the size of beans are embedded. The texture of the flesh is like
that of firm ice cream, the flavour delicately subacid. It has been
compared to a combination of pineapple and banana.
Though geographically tropical in origin, the cherimoya does
not attain perfection in the tropical lowlands. Its culture is
limited to elevations of 3,000 to 7,500 ft. in the tropics, and to
mid-wintered subtropical regions. Its climatic requirements are,
in fact, quite specialized; it will grow satisfactorily in many re-
gions, but in some of these, little fruit will be produced and may be
of unsatisfactory quality. Successful efforts to increase produc-
tion have been made in California and elsewhere by hand pollina-
ting the flowers.
Propagation is commonly by means of seeds, but the cherimoya
lends itself readily to grafting, and superior varieties are perpetu-
ated in this way. The method commonly used is the one employed
with citrus fruits, i.e., shield budding. Trees are planted in orch-
ard form, spaced about 25 ft. apart; they are given much the
same cultural attention as oranges. They come into commercial
production at three to five years of age.
To this same family, Annonaceae, belong several other tropical
American fruit trees. The best of these is probably the guanabana
or soursop (Annona muricata); its large fruits are used to make
ice creams and refreshing drinks, popular in Cuba. Another
species, A. squamosa, usually known in English as sugar apple,
is commonly grown in drier parts of the American tropics as well
as in India and elsewhere. A hybrid between this and the cheri-
moya is cultivated commercially on a small scale in Israel. An-
other species, A. reticulata, known as custard apple, produces a
fruit of mediocre quality; this tends to confuse it with the cheri-
moya to which the same name is sometimes applied in English-
speaking regions. Annonas in general require care in handling and
transportation. Harvested at an appropriate stage of maturity and
carefully packed, however, they will remain in good condition
for a week or so without refrigeration.
(W. Po.)
CHERKASSY, an oblast (administrative division) and a town
and administrative centre in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Re-
public of the U.S.S.R. Pop. of oblast (1959) 1,470,214. Area
7,992 sq.mi. By far the greater part of the oblast, which was
formed in 1954, lies in the Dnieper right bank area. A small part,
of low-lying flood plain, lies on the left (eastern) bank around
Zolotonsha. The right bank consists of rolling hills of the
Dnieper uplands, much cut up by the valleys of small streams
flowing to the Dnieper and by the headwaters of the Sinyukha,
flowing south to the Southern Bug river. The area is covered by
