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20-508: Presumably, Starobilsk traces its heritage to the settlement of Bielska Sloboda which originally might have been named after Okolnichy Bogdan Belsky of Litvin Bielsky family who at that time was a subject of the Grand Duchy of Moscow . Bielsky arrived at the banks of Siversky Donets to build a fortress at the southern borders Tsare-Borisov (after Muscovite Tsar Boris Godunov ) which

40-480: Is twinned with: Sloboda (settlement) A sloboda was a type of settlement in the history of Belarus , Russia and Ukraine . The name is derived from the early Slavic word for ' freedom ' and may be loosely translated as 'free settlement'. In the history of Russia, a sloboda was a settlement or a town district of people free of the power of boyars . Often these were settlements of tradesmen and artisans, and were named according to their trade, such as

60-786: The Chmyrivka cemetery. A plaque on the outside wall of the convent states that more than 4,000 Polish prisoners of war were confined inside the convent and ultimately executed in 1940. The Starobilsk prisoners were executed at the District Directorate of the NKVD in Kharkov and later buried in the forest in Pyatykhatky . These executions, together with executions of Polish officers held in POW camps at Kozelsk , Ostashkov , and some smaller camps, became known as

80-692: The Katyn massacre . The German Wehrmacht entered Starobilsk in late 1942, and evacuated nine months later, destroying much of the city but neglecting to dynamite the milk factory. The Germans operated a Nazi prison in the city. The town was rebuilt around this factory, which in turn helped the region recover after the war. During the first phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War many places in Luhansk Oblast were taken over by pro-Russian separatists ; however, Starobilsk remained under Ukrainian control. The flag of

100-877: The Luhansk People's Republic was raised over the Hotel Aidar on 17 June 2014, but swiftly removed. The city was occupied by a military presence for two years thereafter, during which time the statue of Lenin in Starobilsk city park was toppled by a tank. In 2016, Lenin Street was renamed Monastery Street as it had been before the Bolshevik revolution. On 24 February 2022, at the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine , Russian Forces began an assault on Starobilsk, consisting of an unspecified number of Tanks, BMPS, and infantry. On 6 March 2022, hundreds of locals gathered and took down

120-591: The yamshchiks ' sloboda ( Russian : ямская слобода , yamskaya sloboda  [ ru ] ) and smiths ' sloboda . The German Quarter in Moscow ( nemetskaya sloboda ) was set up to house foreigners. Often a sloboda was a colonization-type settlement in sparsely populated lands, particularly by Cossacks in Cossack Hetmanate , see " Sloboda Ukraine ". Initially, the settlers of such sloboda were freed from various taxes and levies for various reasons, hence

140-608: The Tsarist government allowed them to settle in the military frontier with the Crimean realm to carry out border guard functions. After the place became populated with serfs from the central regions of today's Russia, the Tsarist government took measures to find and return those fugitives. In 1701 the Ambassadorial Prikaz decided to conduct a population census in new settlements along Aidar and Siversky Donets . Most population avoided

160-544: The census. According to data of stolnik M.Pushkin who in 1703 conducted a population census in 34 settlements, in Bielsky was registered only 41 residents although in reality there were much more. Trying to meet the demands of Russian landlords who repeatedly turned to the Tsar with complaints and requests to return fugitives, on 6 July 1707 Peter the Great issued an edict ( ukase ) about

180-600: The end of the 19th century a sloboda was a large village with more than one church, a marketplace, and volost administration, or a village-type settlement of industrial character, where the peasants have little involvement in agriculture . The term is preserved in names of various settlements and city quarters. Some settlements were named just thus: "Sloboda", "Slobodka" (diminutive form), "Slabodka", "Slobidka" ( Ukrainian ). Similar settlements existed in Wallachia and Moldavia , called slobozie or slobozia . The latter term

200-455: The flag of the so-called Luhansk People's Republic , burning it and singing the Ukrainian national anthem . The pro-Russian forces dispersed the pro-Ukrainian meeting with shots in the air. On 11 August 2022, Askyar Laishev, a former law enforcement officer and collaborator, was killed in a car bombing on Shevchenko Street. In early September 2022, Ukraine launched a major counteroffensive in

220-472: The name. Freedom from taxes was an incentive for colonization . By the first half of the 18th century, this privilege was abolished, and slobodas became ordinary villages , shtetls , townlets , suburbs. Some slobodas were suburban settlements, right behind the city wall. Many of them were subsequently incorporated into cities, and the corresponding toponyms indicate their origin. The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary relates that by

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240-580: The people of Starobilsk from a balcony on the main square in 1919. During World War II , the old convent was the site of a Soviet prison camp for Polish prisoners of war (POWs), especially officers. 48 of those who died in the camp were buried at the Starobilsk cemetery. In 1994, their bodies were moved to the Polish War Quarter built by the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites at

260-574: The pro-Russian Deputy Head of the Centre for Servicing Educational Organisations of the Luhansk People’s Republic, Valerii Chaika. Ethnic makeup as of 2001: Native language according to the 2001 Ukrainian census : As of the first general census of the Russian Empire in 1897, Starobilsk counted a population of 9,801 inhabitants. The native language composition was as follows: Starobilsk

280-452: The region. On 13 September, Ukrainian Governor of Luhansk Oblast , Serhiy Haidai , stated that Russian forces had fled Starobilsk adding that the city was "practically empty". As for December 2022, the latter claim was proven to be false, as the Ukrainian counteroffensive has stalled outside Svatove , around 60 KM from Starobilsk. On 1 April 2024 a car bomb in the centre of Starobilsk killed

300-511: The search of "newly arrived from Rus all ranks of people". To the Don was sent a punitive detachment under the command of Colonel Prince Yuriy Dolgorukiy. He was charged to search for fugitives and "take them to those landowners from whom they ran away". That action led to the well-known Bulavin Rebellion . Struggling with the rebellion, Tsarist troops eventually burnt the settlement to the ground. In 1732

320-538: The settlement was repopulated again by peasants from around Ostrogozhsk (Ostrohozk) turning it into a sloboda Stara-Bila . Among the first of its new residents were again servicemen of the Ostrohozk Regiment led by sotnik I. Senelnykov. In 1782 Staro-Bila was assigned to the Derkul Horse Factory of Bilovodsk district ( Voronezh Governorate ). On Tsarist edict ( ukase ) from 1 May 1797 sloboda Staro-Bila

340-693: The state returned it to the Orthodox Church. It was reconsecrated and opened in 1995. The town was occupied by Austrian troops during the Central Powers ' advance through Ukraine in the spring of 1918 but soon became a center of activity for the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine or Anarchists. A photograph in the City Regional Museum (Старобільський краєзнавчий музей) shows Anarchist leader Nestor Makhno addressing

360-403: Was erected not far away in 1598–1600. In 1602 Godunov became suspicious of Belsky and order him to be arrested, stripped of any estates, and exiled to Siberia . After the death of Godunov Belsky was granted amnesty in 1605 due to the fact that his sister being the wife of the deceased Boris Godunov, Maria Skuratova-Belskaya , became a regent. Belsky was sent as a voivode to Kazan where in 1611

380-641: Was killed by a mob after refusing to pledge allegiance to False Dmitry II . Sloboda gradually became abandoned, while the fortress was destroyed in 1612 in one of the Tatar raids. In 1686 the settlement was repopulated by servicemen of the Ostrohozk Sloboda Cossack Regiment who originally came from Poltava and Chernihiv regions and named their settlement after a town of Bilsk , Cossack Hetmanate that might have belonged to another Litvin who sided with Muscovites, Theodore Bielsky. Being runaway serfs,

400-616: Was renamed into Starobelsk and became the administrative center of Starobelsk uyezd in Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire . Founded on 12 October 1851, Starobilsk "Joy of All Who Sorrows" Convent (Свято-Скорботний жіночий монастир) became a spiritual center for the region. After the Bolshevik revolution , the convent was restricted and, in April 1924, it was closed down. In 1992,

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