Ovruch

Ovruch stands on a ridge above the Norin amid the forests of Polesia. First recorded as Vruchiy in 977, it became a centre of the Drevlian lands after the destruction of Iskorosten. In the twelfth century Prince Rurik Rostislavich strengthened the town and rebuilt the Church of St Basil in stone, giving it one of the region's most enduring monuments.

Ovruch came under Lithuanian rule in the fourteenth century and served as a fortified centre against Tatar attacks. Crimean Tatars devastated it in 1483 and again in 1506. Later a royal town of the Polish Crown, Ovruch gave its name to a district encompassing much of the wooded country around it. The second partition of Poland brought the town into the Russian Empire in 1793.