Natural resources include deposits of peat, sand, clay, chalk, marl, and other building materials, as well as phosphorite.

About a quarter of the total area of the oblast is covered by forests, mainly coniferous, mixed, and deciduous, as well as forest-steppe.

[citation needed] As a result of the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, part of the territory of Bryansk Oblast (mainly Gordeyevsky, Klimovsky, Klintsovsky, Krasnogorsky, Surazhsky, and Novozybkovsky Districts) has been contaminated with radionuclides.

After the Mongols murdered Prince Mikhail of Chernigov in 1246 and his capital was destroyed, his son Roman Mikhailovich moved his seat to Bryansk.

Bryansk became Moscow's south-western outpost in the fights against Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Kingdom of Poland, and Crimean Khanate.

After the annexation of the lands by the Tsardom of Russia in 1654, all the left bank of the Dnieper, including the south-western area of Bryansk, was divided into hundreds of administrative regiments.

On September 27, 1937, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union decided to abolish the Western Krai, dividing it into Smolensk and Oryol Oblasts.

The fighting resulted in the destruction and burning of many towns and villages, affecting some 111,000 homes and many important industrial enterprises.

[12] On 4 July 1997, Bryansk, alongside Chelyabinsk, Magadan, Saratov, and Vologda, signed a power-sharing agreement with the government of Russia, granting it autonomy.

The top exports of Bryansk Oblast in 2021 were railway and trams (15.6%), iron & steel (10.8%), wood (9.74%), and paper articles (9.32%).

Since 1991, the CPSU lost all the power, and the head of the oblast administration, and eventually the governor, was appointed/elected alongside an elected regional parliament.

[26] Vital statistics for 2022:[27][28] Total fertility rate (2022):[29] 1.20 children per woman Life expectancy (2021):[30] Total — 68.67 years (male — 63.57, female — 73.88) Source:[24] According to a 2012 survey[32] 49.5% of the population of Bryansk Oblast adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church, 4.7% are unaffiliated Christians, 0.8% are Orthodox Christian believers who don't belong to any church or are members of other (non-Russian) Orthodox churches, and 0.7% are adherents of Rodnovery (Slavic folk religion).

Around the building were comparatively short sidearms, which were slightly protruding rectangular altars ending in a lowered semicircular apse.

The tier of the bell tower is decorated with large flat-arched niches in the center of the facets, rusticated corner parts to the waist, and round niches-medallions above it.

In the interior, all the side parts are completely open into the high central one, forming a single space of the temple.

Only the plaster cornices at the base of the vaults and at the top of the main quadrangle, as well as pilasters between the windows on the north and south walls, have survived from the interior decoration.

The coat of arms is a blue shield representing Slavic unity between the states of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

In the upper part of the shield is a stylized golden spruce with a three-tiered crown representing the forests of Bryansk.