Svir

Svir stands on the shore of the lake of the same name, in the old lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The mound in the settlement preserves traces of fortifications dating from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, and the princes of Svir took their name from the place. In 1579 Stephen Báthory assembled cavalry and held a council of war here before his campaign to capture Polotsk. A Catholic church dedicated to Saint Nicholas was founded in 1693. Svir passed to Russia in 1795.