Turov

Turov stands in Polesia near the Pripyat River, whose waters connect it to the Dnieper. It was an early Rus princely centre and the seat of a bishopric, remembered for the writings of Cyril of Turov. By the fourteenth century it belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Tatar attacks damaged the town in 1502 and 1521, after which the Ostrogski family held it for more than a century. Wars with Muscovy devastated Turov: the number of households fell from 401 in 1648 to 111 in 1667. The town passed to Russia in the second partition of Poland in 1793. Its wooden Orthodox Church of All Saints, built in 1810, reflects the continuing religious life of a much smaller town.