Maladzyechna
Maladzyechna is a city located in the Minsk Voblast of Belarus. It is home to nearly 100,000 inhabitants and located on the Usha River. Its early history is not well known, but it has been settled since at least 1388. During this period, it was a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The first mentioning of what would one day become the city of Maladzyechna concerns a fortification erected on the right bank of the river.
In the early 1600s, Maladzyechna was donated to Michael of Mstislav by King Sigismund I of Poland. In exchange, Michael of Mstislav promised to provide a safe river passage for noblemen and hunters.
After the Partition of Poland, Maladzyechna was annexed by Imperial Russia, but the empire didn’t pay much attention to the town. As a result of Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia, Maladzyechna was more or less completely demolished in 1812. The old monastery and castle was for instance shattered. By the mid 1800s, only about 500 residents lived in Maladzyechna and it would take until the late 1800s before the city began to slowly recover from the war. In 1871, and Orthodox Church was built as the main town square, and two years later transportation suddenly became much easier when the town was hooked up to the Minsk-Vilna railway. During the 20th century, Maladzyechna became a major railway junction.
Maladzyechna became a part of Byelorussia in 1939, after being occupied by the Red Army as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and annexed to the Byelorussian SSR.
