Shchuchye

Shchuchye lies in the lake and forest country north of Smolensk, near the Mezha River and the upper Western Dvina basin. Its name, shared by a lake and the surrounding district, means a place associated with pike. The lake is among the largest in the Smolensk uplands, set amid woods and wetlands. This was a borderland of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania before the Smolensk lands passed to Russian control in the seventeenth century.