Izium

Izium occupies a bend of the Siverskyi Donets, where the river cuts through the hills of the southern forest-steppe. A fortified settlement stood here in the seventeenth century, on a frontier exposed to raids from the steppe. Its position on the river and the defensive line made it an important Cossack centre of Sloboda Ukraine.

In 1681 the Kharkiv Cossack colonel Hryhorii Donets-Zakharshevskyi began a new fortress on the high right bank. From 1685 until 1765 Izium was the seat of its own Sloboda Cossack regiment. Its Transfiguration Cathedral, built in 1684–1685, is an early masonry church of the region, while Saint Nicholas's Church was begun in 1809. The fortress and churches marked the growth of a permanent town out of the military settlements along the Donets.