Chernyanka

Chernyanka stands beside the Oskol, amid the wooded river valleys of the southern Russian frontier. Its name may recall the broadleaf woods once called “black forest” in the region. The village appears in records of 1656–1657, when the fortified settlements of the Oskol country formed part of the expanding frontier of the Russian state. In the eighteenth century it was also known as Novo-Ivanovka, and its lands were divided among estate owners and independent householders.