Polotsk

Polotsk is one of the earliest-mentioned towns of the Eastern Slavs: the Primary Chronicle records it in 862, and archaeologists date the settlement to the first half of the 9th century. Its first known prince, Rogvolod, ruled from 945 until Vladimir of Kiev attacked the town, killed him and his sons and married his daughter Rogneda; their son Izyaslav became Prince of Polotsk in 989. Between the 10th and 12th centuries the Principality of Polotsk was the dominant power in what is now Belarus, repeatedly asserting its independence from Kiev. Its most powerful ruler, Vseslav, who reigned from 1044 to 1101, built the Cathedral of St Sophia, named to rival those of Kiev and Novgorod.

Polotsk escaped the Mongols but became a vassal of the Lithuanian princes in 1240, and in 1307 Grand Duke Vytenis annexed it, granting a charter of autonomy. It gained Magdeburg law in 1498 and was the capital of a voivodeship of the Commonwealth until 1772. Ivan the Terrible's army took it in 1563, and Stefan Batory recovered it and founded a Jesuit college in 1580. After the First Partition brought it under Russia in 1772, Catherine II ignored the papal suppression of the Jesuits, and Polotsk became the order's European centre until Alexander I expelled them in 1820 and dispersed their great library.

Two battles of 1812 were fought nearby. German forces occupied the town in 1918 and again from July 1941 to July 1944. In 1944 a transfer of Polotsk and its surroundings to the Russian SFSR was seriously considered, but Stalin rejected it, and the oil city of Novopolotsk was founded beside it in 1958.

Polotsk was the seat of the medieval principality that dominated what is now Belarus. Its great medieval figure is Euphrosyne of Polotsk, granddaughter of Prince Vseslav, a nun who built monasteries, copied books, promoted literacy and sponsored art, including the Cross of St Euphrosyne, decorated with gold, gemstones and enamel and made by the local craftsman Lazar Bohsha, a national treasure lost during the Second World War. She is one of the most popular saints among Orthodox believers in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, with a feast day on 23 May, and her relics, brought back to Polotsk in 1910, draw pilgrims to the convent.

The town is also the birthplace of Francysk Skaryna, born around 1490, who in 1517 became the first to print the Bible in the Old Belarusian language, and a museum of printing honours him. In 2003, when the Days of Belarusian Literacy were held in Polotsk for the tenth time, the town unveiled a monument to Ў, the short U that among Slavic languages only Belarusian uses. The rebuilt Cathedral of St Sophia, now a museum and concert hall with an organ, gives the town a regular programme of music.

The population is largely Orthodox, and Russian is the everyday language of the streets. In the Tale of Igor's Campaign, Prince Vseslav is said to have travelled by night to Kiev as a werewolf, hearing the bells of St Sophia at Polotsk ringing for matins. The town has also produced players for the national bandy team.

Polotsk had 79,285 inhabitants in 2025 and is the administrative centre of Polotsk District in the Vitebsk Region. It is half of a twin-town pair: Novopolotsk, a Soviet city founded in 1958 a short distance away, has about 95,000 people and the Naftan refinery, one of the country's two big oil refineries, which shapes the local economy.

The old town on the Dvina keeps its churches and former monastery buildings, among them the 18th-century Epiphany Cathedral. Polotsk State University, which claims the heritage of the Jesuit college, occupies part of the reconstructed college buildings and brings students to the centre. Tourism matters, with day visitors from Minsk and Vitebsk coming for the cathedral and the convent, and pilgrims visiting St Euphrosyne's relics.

Life follows the national rhythm of early starts, canteen lunches and weekends at the dacha, and in summer many families head for the lakes of the surrounding region to camp, fish and grill.

Polotsk eats the cooking of northern Belarus, the national potato table in a cool, lake-filled land. Draniki, pancakes of grated potato often considered the signature national dish, come with sour cream or with machanka, a thick gravy with pieces of meat and sausage. Potato babka, a dish of German origin that Jewish cooks brought into Belarusian cooking in the 19th century, and kalduny, boiled dumplings that since the late 19th century have often been made with grated potato, suit the long winters, and khaladnik, a cold borscht of beets, beet leaves or sorrel served with sour cream and hard-boiled eggs, appears on hot days.

Lake fish, notably zander, and carp are the traditional catch, cooked in a wide variety of ways, and smoked or stuffed eels are a speciality of the lake country in the north-west of Belarus. Mushrooms appear in many dishes, from zrazy, chopped beef rolled and filled with vegetables, mushrooms, eggs or potato, to eggs stuffed with mushrooms, and forest berries go into kissel, the traditional jelly drink of Eastern Europe.

Fresh white cheese and sour cream run through the whole cuisine. Kvass, traditionally made from rye malt, remains the main everyday soft drink, and among stronger drinks zubrovka is vodka flavoured with forest herbs.