Velikiye Luki

Velikiye Luki stands on the winding Lovat River, its name recalling the great bends of the watercourse. A fortress here guarded the southwestern approaches to Novgorod and Pskov, close to the lands contested with Lithuania. First recorded as Luki in 1166, the settlement belonged to the Novgorod Republic; a fortress built in 1211 gave it a lasting military significance. The longer name, Velikiye Luki, appeared in the early fifteenth century.

Moscow took the town with the rest of Novgorod in 1478. Its position brought it into the struggles of the Livonian War: in 1580 King Stephen Báthory of Poland and Lithuania besieged and captured the fortress, which remained under Polish control until 1582. The town subsequently became part of Peter the Great's Ingermanland Governorate, and in the eighteenth century passed through the newly formed Novgorod and Pskov governorates. From 1777 it served as the seat of an uyezd, giving this old frontier stronghold a continuing administrative role.