Bolshevo

Bolshevo is placed in the wooded country associated with Bely, near the watershed between the Western Dvina and Dnieper river systems. Rivers and forest connected dispersed communities across this inland borderland.

Bely's fortress first appears in a chronicle in 1350, when it was taken by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The town changed hands between Lithuania, later Poland, and Moscow before coming under Moscow in 1654. In Peter the Great's administrative reform of 1708, the wider area became part of Belsky Uyezd in Smolensk Governorate.