The southern part of the district belongs to the drainage basin of the Sozh River, a major left tributary of the Dnieper.

[2] On 12 July 1929, Kasplyansky District with the administrative center in the selo of Kasplya was established.

The railway connecting Moscow and Minsk runs through the district passing Smolensk.

The M1 highway connecting Moscow with the state border between Russia and Belarus crosses the district from east to west bypassing Smolensk from the north.

The R120 highway continues north to Rudnya and further across the border to Vitebsk, and south to Roslavl and Bryansk.

The R135 highway runs from Smolensk to the southwest to Krasny and continues across the border to Orsha.

[13] The federally protected monuments in the districts include a park in the selo of Talashkino and an estate in the selo of Syrokorenskiye Lipki In Katyn, just west of the city of Smolensk, thousands of Polish officers were executed in 1940 by the Soviet regime.

The cite currently features a memorial, built around the Katyn war cemetery, and a museum.

[14] In Talashkino, Mariya Tenisheva opened in the end of the 19th century an artisan center, where local people were employed.

Those which survived, including the Church of the Holy Spirit and the fairy-tale reconstruction by Sergey Malyutin, currently host a museum.