Nevel

Nevel stands among the lakes and forests north of Polotsk. Its fortress guarded a contested frontier between the Lithuanian and Muscovite states, and the name was applied both to the town and to the surrounding district. By the sixteenth century its defences had become a part of the chain of strongholds on the Lithuanian border.

During the Livonian War, a force under Prince Andrei Kurbsky was defeated near Nevel in 1562. King Stephen Báthory's troops took the fortress in 1580, but the truce of Yam-Zapolsky returned it to Russia in 1582. The truce of Deulino assigned Nevel to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1618, and the settlement again changed hands under the truce of Andrusovo in 1667. Its frontier position left a long record of sieges and changing rulers.