Rakitnoye

Rakitnoye takes its name from the Rakitna, a small river in the forest-steppe west of Belgorod. In 1652 Russian officials surveying the frontier chose its high bank for a watch fort between the fortified towns of Karpov and Khotmyzhsk. Service men settled at the outpost, followed by Ukrainian and Russian migrants, and the sloboda of Rakitnaya grew under its protection. In the eighteenth century the estate passed through the hands of prominent nobles, including Alexander Menshikov and the Yusupov family.