Krychaw

Krychaw stands on the Sozh in the eastern lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A chronicle of 1136 names it among towns paying tribute to the prince of Smolensk. Its castle guarded the settlement through centuries of conflict, and in 1633 the town received Magdeburg rights and a municipal council.

In the eighteenth century Krychaw became the centre of a major uprising against the burdens imposed on the estate administered by Hieronim Florian Radziwiłł. Led by the village headman Vasil Vashchyla, peasants and townspeople challenged his authority between 1740 and 1744. Radziwiłł's troops suppressed the revolt with great severity, though some obligations were subsequently changed. After the first partition of the Commonwealth in 1772, Krychaw passed to Russia; a shipyard established in the 1780s built vessels that could reach the Black Sea by way of the Dnieper.