About Rossony

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The Rossony land was inhabited by humans in ancient times, as evidenced by over 20 fortified settlements and several groups of burial mounds. According to scientists, the area was settled during the Mesolithic era, in the 9th-5th millennia BC.

The most famous barrow, shrouded in legends, is Rogneida's Barrow. It is located near the village of Perevoz, on the southeastern shore of Lake Drysy. Ancient legend has it that Prince Rogvolod of Polotsk and his daughter Rogneda are buried here.

The Rossony land holds the secrets of boulder stones, which are geological natural monuments. The last ice age also left behind beautiful natural monuments in the form of eskers (Mezhevskaya and Rylevskaya) intersected by rivers.

According to documents, the settlement has been known since 1552 as a locality in the Polotsk Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Toponymy experts claim that the settlement got its name from Lake Rossono, near which it is located. The name is based on the Old Belarusian word "raskhony," meaning ravines, slopes diverging in two directions, and small bays, which are abundant around the lake.

Rossony District was established on July 17, 1924. The district has 128 settlements, including the urban settlement of Rossony, located on the shore of the lake of the same name, 276 kilometers from Minsk and 165 kilometers from Vitebsk.

The population of the district as of January 1, 2025, is 8050 people, including 4401 urban and 3649 rural residents. Administratively, the district is divided into 6 rural councils: Albrechtovsky, Gorbachevsky, Klyastitsky, Krasnopolsky, Sokolishchensky, and Yankovichsky.

The district witnessed and was the arena of many historically significant events. During the Livonian War, at the confluence of the Nishcha and Drissa rivers in 1566, the fortress "Sokol" was founded by Russian troops. It was one of the strongest castles of that time: it had eleven towers and was surrounded by a wooden wall, rampart, and moat. But wars take their toll... Sokolinsky Castle existed for only 13 years, until September 11, 1579. On this day, after stubborn resistance from the Russian garrison, it was captured by Lithuanian troops and burned down.

On July 18-19, 1812, near Klyastitsy, the vanguard of Wittgenstein's Russian corps, led by General Yakov Petrovich Kulnev, inflicted the first significant defeat on Marshal Oudinot's French corps, capturing nine hundred prisoners and a large enemy convoy. The victory at Klyastitsy boosted the morale of our army and prevented Napoleon's invasion of St. Petersburg.

The Rossony district is a land of partisan glory. From the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, extensive underground and soon partisan resistance against the German-fascist invaders unfolded here. One of the organizers and leaders of the underground and partisan movement was Pyotr Mironovich Masherov, a teacher at Rossony Secondary School. By the end of 1942, the district was liberated from the occupiers by the partisan brigades operating here.

Ronnshchina suffered irreparable losses during the war. Nazi thugs killed, burned, tortured, and hanged thousands of civilians here. If the population before the war was 37,311 people, after the liberation of the district, only 17,031 remained.

The residents of the district sacredly honor the memory of the fallen heroes. There are 116 monuments of monumental art on the territory of the district.

In the XVII-XIX centuries, the characteristic features of the district's territory were the construction of architectural and park residences (Glasko estate and others), park construction, and Orthodox religious construction. There were many churches in the villages, and in Gorbachevo and Dmitrovo Most, there were Catholic churches.

Currently, the Church of the Ascension of the Lord in Rossony (1879) and the Church of St. Josaphat Kuntsevich have been revived and are in operation.

In the village of Troodovichi in Rossony, the brothers Ivan and Francis Skorina owned a small estate and property. In 1936, Belarusian poet Gennady Buravkin was born here. On the shore of Lake Neshchardo, in the village of Muragi, the childhood and youth of the famous Belarusian writer, author of the prose collection "Shlyakhtich Zavalnya...", and poems "Gorelytsa," "Two Birches" by Yan Borshchevsky, took place. In 1997, a monument to the famous countryman was erected here.

Yanka Kupala visited Rossony, and Yanka Skrygan worked here. Playwright Nikolai Matukovsky was born in the village of Kalyutino.

The nature of the Rossony district is:

1.9 thousand sq. km of area, of which almost 70% are southern taiga forests, spread from neighboring Pskov region to our North;
a blue scattering of 192 lakes, with a total area of 8009 hectares;
more than 15 large and small rivers, including the Drissa River with its tributaries Svolna, Nisha, Neshcharda;

springs with pure, healing water, one of which, "Lazarevaya Krinitsa," is a hydrological natural monument;
a unique complex of raised bogs (Zaborskiy Mokh, Yukhovichi Mokh, Mezhno), occupying 49% of the district's area and second only to the "Yelnya" bog in the Miory district in terms of area;
"Sinsha" and "Krasny Bor" reserves with diverse fauna and flora, valuable species included in the Red Book.

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