Kursk

Kursk rose on a high promontory above the Kur and Tuskar rivers, on the edge of the forest-steppe between the Seim and the wild steppe. It had been the seat of a Rus' principality since 1095. The Mongols destroyed the town in 1238 and Nogai's horde ravaged it again in 1285. After Algirdas won the battle of Blue Waters in 1362, it passed to Lithuania. Tradition says a hunter found the icon of Our Lady of the Sign on a tree root in the forest near the burned town in 1295, which gave it the name Korennaya, the Root Icon.

Raids by Crimean Tatars and Nogais left the old town empty in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Muscovy, which held Kursk from 1508, founded it anew on two hills in 1586, and in 1596 a wooden fortress was raised on the old site. Tsar Feodor took the icon to Moscow in 1597 and ordered Kursk rebuilt. Michael Romanov sent it back in 1615 and founded the Znamensky Monastery, where it was installed in 1618. Polish-Lithuanian and Tatar attackers came again and again in the early 17th century but never took the fortress. By 1678 Kursk had 2,800 inhabitants, living on the short road from Moscow to Crimea, and in 1779 it became the seat of a viceroyalty.