Horki

Horki stands on the Pronya at its meeting with the Porositsa. First recorded in 1544 as a village of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, it belonged to the Drucki-Górski princes and passed to the Sapieha family in 1584. Known as Hory-Horki, it grew into an estate centre with regular fairs. In 1683 its three marketplaces attracted merchants from Belarusian and Russian towns, and the settlement counted 510 houses.

Peter I stayed at Horki for several weeks in 1708 during the Great Northern War. The first partition of the Commonwealth brought the town under Russian rule in 1772. The campaign of 1812 took a heavy toll on its inhabitants, and the estate was confiscated by the imperial treasury in 1829. In 1836 an imperial decree founded an agricultural school here, though it opened its doors only later.