Yartsevo

Yartsevo lies on the Vop, a tributary of the Dnieper between Smolensk and Dorogobuzh. In 1610 King Sigismund III granted the estate of Yartsovo to the Smolensk noble Timofey Shusherin, providing its earliest known written mention. It remained a small rural settlement for much of the period that followed. Its river and the roads through the district linked the Smolensk countryside with the towns along the upper Dnieper.