 Complete the following phrase:  In the Russian Empire, oblasts were a third-level administrative division, organized in 1849 and few in number, dividing the larger guberniyas governorates within the first-level krais. Following the numerous administration reforms during the Soviet era, the number of oblasts gradually increased as they became the primary top-level administrative division of the Soviet Socialist Republics SSRs, the constituent political entities of the Soviet Union. These oblasts held very little autonomy or power, but when the 