Araion (also speltrayon) is a type of administrative unit of severalpost-Soviet states. The term is used for both a type ofsubnational entity and a division of acity. The word is from theFrenchrayon (meaning 'honeycomb, department'),[1] and is commonly translated as 'district' in English.[2]
raions are subdivisions of three biggest cities:Sofia,Plovdiv andVarna. Sofia is subdivided to 24 raions (Sofia districts), Plovdiv - 6, Varna - 5 raions
inherited from theGeorgian SSR; 2006 as first-level entities reorganized into municipalities. Araioni remains a territorial subdivision of Georgia's capital,Tbilisi.
490 raions were inherited from theUkrainian SSR, which were replaced by 136 new raions in 2020.[4] Major Ukrainian cities are alsosubdivided into raions, constituting a total of 118 nationwide.
In theSoviet Union, raions were administrative divisions created in the 1920s to reduce the number of territorial divisions inherited from theRussian Empire and to simplify their bureaucracies.[5] The process of conversion to the system of raions was calledraionirovanie ("regionalization"). It was started in 1923 in theUrals,North Caucasus, andSiberia as a part of the Soviet administrative reform and continued through 1929, by which time the majority of the country's territory was divided into raions instead of the oldvolosts anduyezds.[5]
The concept ofraionirovanie was met with resistance in some republics, especially inUkraine, where local leaders objected to the concept of raions as being too centralized in nature and ignoring the local customs. This point of view was backed by the Soviet RussianPeople's Commissariat of Nationalities.[5] Nevertheless, eventually all of the territory of the Soviet Union was regionalized.
Soviet raions had self-governance in the form of an electeddistrict council (raysovet) and were headed by the local head of administration, who was either elected or appointed.
Following the model of the Soviet Union, raions were introduced in Bulgaria and Romania. In China the term is used in Uyghur in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
InBulgaria, raions are subdivisions of three biggest cities:Sofia,Plovdiv andVarna. Sofia is subdivided to 24 raions (Sofia districts), Plovdiv - 6, Varna - 5 raions.
6 мая 2001 г. «Конституция Республики Тыва», в ред. Конституционного закона №1419 ВХ-2 от 10 июля 2009 г «О внесении изменений в статью 113 Конституции Республики Тыва». Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования. Опубликован: "Тувинская правда", 15 мая 2001 г. (May 6, 2001Constitution of the Tyva Republic, as amended by the Constitutional Law #1419 VKh-2 of July 10, 2009On Amending Article 113 of the Constitution of the Tyva Republic. Effective as of the official publication date.).
