Tselina

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Tselina or virgin lands (Russian: целина́, lit. 'whole lands'; Ukrainian: цілина́, romanized: tsilina) is an umbrella term for underdeveloped, scarcely populated, high-fertility lands often covered with the chernozem soil.^[1] The lands were mostly located in the steppes of the Volga region, Northern Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia.^[2]

The term became widely used in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the Soviet Union during the Virgin Lands campaign (Russian: Освое́ние целины́, romanized: Osvoyeniye tseliny, lit. 'reclamation of tselina') - a state development and resettlement campaign to turn the lands into a major agriculture producing region.^{[citation needed]}