Klintsy

Klintsy began in 1707 as a settlement of Old Believers beside the Turosna River in the Starodub country. Vasily Klintsov and other migrants from central Russia settled on land belonging to Ivan Borozdna. Religious persecution had encouraged their departure, and the new settlement offered a place to preserve practices rejected by the reformed Russian Church. A census book compiled in 1729 recorded its foundation and named Klintsov among its organisers.

Crafts and commerce soon supported the growing community. Residents made bricks, clothing, footwear, sledges and carts, and traded hemp products, honey and soap. In 1782, Klintsy received the status of a posad, a trading and artisan settlement. A printing establishment opened in 1785 to produce Old Believer religious and educational books. Religious migration thus became linked with household enterprise and the circulation of goods and texts. By the late eighteenth century, the settlement combined a distinct confessional identity with increasingly substantial commercial institutions.