Bryansk

Bryansk stands on the Desna amid the forests of the old Severian lands. First mentioned in the twelfth century as Debryansk, it became a princely seat after the Mongol devastation of Chernihiv. Its river and surrounding timber later supported both commerce and the building of boats.

The town came under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the fourteenth century and was contested by Lithuanian and Smolensk rulers. It later passed to Moscow, remaining a frontier stronghold during wars with Poland-Lithuania. During the Time of Troubles Bryansk resisted the forces of the second False Dmitry in 1607. It remained in the Russian state when the truce of Deulino ceded other Severian lands to the Commonwealth in 1618. Under Peter I a shipyard on the Desna built river craft for campaigns against the Ottoman Empire; hundreds of boats were ordered in the 1690s. Shipbuilding revived during the war of 1735–39. Later in the eighteenth century an arsenal supplied the army, casting its first cannon in 1785. Bryansk's forests and river thus served both trade and war.