Olevsk

Olevsk lies on the Ubort River in the wooded Polesian region of northern Ukraine. First mentioned in written sources in 1488, it belonged to the Nemyrich family from the mid-sixteenth century until the eighteenth. In 1641 it received Magdeburg law and permission to hold weekly markets and two annual fairs.

The town suffered substantial damage during the uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky. A Carmelite monastery was founded in 1669, and a Jewish community was established by the eighteenth century. After the second partition of Poland in 1793, Olevsk passed to the Russian Empire.