Kastsyukovichy

Kastsyukovichy stands on the Zhadunka River in the Dnieper basin of eastern Belarus. The settlement appears in written records in 1508 under the name Kastsioukova, within the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania associated with Mstsislaw. It remained a small community well into the eighteenth century: a count for 1730 recorded thirty-five hearths. Such figures describe households or taxable domestic units rather than an exact number of inhabitants. The first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth transferred the village to the Russian Empire in 1772. By 1784 it was recorded with eighty-nine hearths and belonged to Mogilev governorate. These scattered entries trace a growing settlement whose rulers and administrative affiliations changed while its river setting remained the same. Its early history is therefore best followed through village names, household counts and the incorporation of this part of the Lithuanian-Ruthenian borderlands into imperial Russian government.