Rasony

Rasony lies in a wooded, lake-strewn region north of Polotsk. It was a private town belonging to the Lubomirski family, whose estates formed part of the landed society of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A Jesuit mission was established here around 1764. In 1812, during Napoleon's invasion of Russia, French forces captured the town, bringing the wider struggle between the empires into this northern corner of the old Polotsk lands.