Definition of "oblast" []

• An administrative territorial division within Russia and other former Soviet republics, including Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In the late Twenties, Stalin created the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (oblast is the Russian term for province) on the Amur River near Vladivostok."
• "If the oblast is restored, it will be because people here want it."
• "May be I'm wrong, I remember something along the lines of pronunciation of Oriol' oblast' being the closest to the ideal."