Slutsk

Slutsk stands on the Sluch and was the capital of a separate principality from the twelfth century. Under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania it became a private town of the Olelkovich and later Radziwiłł families. Its strong fortifications, churches and market made it an important centre in the country south of Minsk. Casimir IV granted it Magdeburg rights in 1441.

The Radziwiłłs made Slutsk a centre of the Reformed Church, with a gymnasium serving its Protestant community. Jewish residents are recorded by the late sixteenth century, and Scottish immigrants also settled in the town in the seventeenth. Slutsk became especially renowned for the rich woven sashes worn by Commonwealth nobles over the żupan. Their fame was such that similar garments made elsewhere were also called Slutsk belts. The town became a county seat in 1778 and passed to Russia in the Second Partition of 1793.