Kholm Zhirkovsky

Kholm lies in the wooded uplands northeast of Smolensk, between the upper Dnieper and Western Dvina watersheds. The village is recorded in 1708, during the reign of Peter I. Its name, meaning a hill, describes the rising ground among the forests and fields of the old Bely district. The surrounding country had formed part of the contested Smolensk borderlands before passing to Russian control in the seventeenth century.