This year marks the 1035th anniversary of the founding of Vitebsk

September 20, Minsk /Anna Gromyko - BELTA/. This year marks the 1035th anniversary of the founding of Vitebsk. On the high banks of the Western Dvina, where the Vitba and Luchesa rivers flow into it, Vitebsk stretches for many kilometers – one of the oldest cities of our Motherland, one of the largest economic and cultural centers of Belarus. According to the Vitebsk Chronicle, the city was founded by the Kievan princess Olga, and it got its name from the Vitba River. It occupied an important place on the route "from the Varangians to the Greeks." Vitebsk belonged to the Kievan princes, and in 1021, Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise transferred Vitebsk to the Polotsk prince Bryachislav Izyaslavich. After the death of the Polotsk prince Vseslav Bryachislavich in 1101, the city became the center of the appanage Vitebsk principality. From 1318, Yaroslav Vasilyevich ruled in Vitebsk; his daughter Maria was the wife of the Krevo prince Algirdas, son of Gediminas. After the death of Prince Yaroslav in 1320, Algirdas became the prince of Vitebsk. From 1345, the city was owned by Prince Andrei Algirdas, and later by Algirdas's second wife, the Tver princess Juliana. In the 1370s, it was part of Jogaila's possessions. From the 14th century, the city was the center of the Vitebsk powiat, and in the 16th century, it had its own administration and court. The self-government structure preserved traditional positions characteristic of the veche times: the ten-man, the centurion, and the "man"-elder. The townspeople elected a vojt from among themselves, who was then approved by the Grand Duke. In the 15th-16th centuries, Vitebsk was a major trading and craft center. In the early 16th century, the Vitebsk Voivodeship was founded. In 1597, Sigismund III Vasa granted the city Magdeburg rights and a coat of arms. After the 1st partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772, Vitebsk became part of the Russian Empire and later became the center of the Vitebsk province. The city was part of the Pskov and Polotsk governorates, and was the center of the Belarusian and Vitebsk governorates. In 1938, it became the center of the Vitebsk region. -0-