Sychyovka

Sychyovka lies between the Vazuza and its tributary the Losmina, on the northern slope of the uplands east of Smolensk. The Vazuza links the district to the Volga, and its banks supported landing places, warehouses and a growing trade in grain, flax and timber.

The district appears in Lithuanian complaints of 1488 after a raid by the men of Ivan the Young, during the contest between Moscow and Lithuania for the Vyazma lands. It became a Muscovite palace village after Vyazma passed to Moscow. By the eighteenth century merchants were sending goods along the waterways toward Rzhev, Tver and St Petersburg. Catherine II made Sychyovka a district town in 1776, giving the trading settlement an administrative role as well as its commercial function.