Catholic Church in Greenland first churches in the western hemisphere, and after much effort the people of Greenland received a bishop. The church thrived with the Norse colony which saw its peak in the 14th century, and had an active relationship with Scandinavia and the European continent; the church also participated in the European exploration of the Americas. The abandonment of the colony around 1450 ended any church presence in Greenland and the Protestant Reformation in Denmark effectively shut Greenland from any Catholic presence until the 20th century, when freedom of religion was declared and a small permanent Catholic presence reestablished. Catholicism was introduced
Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic occupations of livestock raising and beekeeping remain important economic activities. Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic The Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (; , "Bashkirskaya Avtonomnaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika"); also known as Soviet Bashkiria or simply Bashkiria was an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Russian SFSR. Currently it is known as Bashkortostan. Bashkir ASSR was the first Autonomous Soviet Republic in RSFSR. The republic occupied an area of in the far south-eastern corner of European Russia, bounded on the east by the Ural Mountains and within seventy kilometers of the Kazakhstan border at its southernmost point. The region was settled