Bielska Sloboda

Bielska Sloboda stood on the left bank of the Aidar, a tributary of the Siverskyi Donets. A military outpost occupied the site in the sixteenth century, and in 1686 Cossacks of the Ostrohoz regiment settled here. Their sloboda formed part of the expanding settlement of Sloboda Ukraine, along the river valleys of the southern frontier. The settlement later became known as Starobilsk.