Dukhovshchina

Dukhovshchina lies north of Smolensk in a country of forests and small rivers. Its name recalls a monastery dedicated to the Holy Spirit, around which Dukhovskaya Sloboda developed in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The settlement became a centre for the surrounding district in the seventeenth century. In 1777 Catherine II's government transferred the district administration from Kasplya and raised Dukhovshchina to the status of a town.