Yelets

Yelets stands on the Bystraya Sosna, a tributary of the Don, at the edge of the forest-steppe. Known since the Middle Ages, it occupied an exposed position between the Rus' principalities and the peoples of the open steppe. Its fortress and river crossings gave it importance long after the old principality had disappeared.

In 1395 Timur's army reached Yelets during its campaign against the Golden Horde. Centuries later Muscovy rebuilt the town as a southern fortress, and its garrison watched the routes leading north from the steppe. In 1618, during the war between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Cossack forces under Hetman Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny attacked and captured the town.

Yelets recovered and remained a centre for the surrounding agricultural country. As the defended frontier moved south, its military role gave way to trade and crafts. By 1777 the town had 149 shops and held large fairs; its merchants traded grain and leather, while water mills and grain mills operated on the nearby streams throughout the district. A devastating fire in 1769 destroyed the centre, and merchants later raised money for a new stone trading arcade begun in 1792. The Sosna linked the town to other settlements scattered in the upper Don basin, while roads carried the produce of the countryside toward the larger markets of Russia.