History

The history of the territory that makes the present-day Shumilino region traces back to the Mesolite (9-5 thousand years B.C.).

Most settlements of the region are mentioned in the chronicles of the 16th century. The 1552 Polotsk Land Record provides information about "Dobeya land", “Lovzha and Lovzha grounds”, "Obol, the villages of Kozyany, Cherchitsa and Mosary".

In 1772 after the annexation to Russia the Shumilino region made part of the Vitebsk province.

In the 19th century Shumilino was a village in the Lovzha volost of the Polotsk uyezd of the Vitebsk province. There were 5 farms, 13 buildings and 38 residents in the village in 1866. After the construction of the Riga-Orel railway, the village grew into a small town with a railway station. The railway station and the church were the only large buildings there.

On October 17, 1866 Russia’s Minister of Communication Routes, Lieutenant General P.P. Melnikov writes to the Tsar in a telegram “… the 242-verst railway route Polotsk-Vitebsk was opened at 9.30… ”.

There were 50 residents in Shumilino in the early 20th century who owned over 76 dessiatinas of land (one dessiatina is approximately 2 3/4 acres).

In November 1917 Shumilino welcomed the Soviet government. In 1924 the Vitebsk district included the Sirotino region with Shumilino as a center of the region. In 1928 Shumilino set up its first kolkhoz Iskra, then Novoye Delo and Krasnaya Lovsha collective farms.

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War the region’s population was about 45 thousand people.

In June 1941 the Shumilino region was occupied by the Nazi troops. From the very beginning thousands of Shumilino residents went to the front, joined partisans, put up resistance to the enemy. Every fourth fell. The title of the Soviet Union Hero was conferred on four residents of the region.

During the occupation the Nazis burned 133 settlements and killed over 5 thousand people. The names of eight villages were added to the list at the memorial complex Khatyn.

On June 23, 1944 the liberation operation Bagration started on the territory of the Shumilino region. Some 106 soldiers of the Soviet Army became Heroes of the Soviet Union for the liberation of Shumilino.

The railway station in Shumilino was the only building that was not destroyed during the war.

The first hydroelectric power station in the Soviet Union was built in Shumilino. Historical documentary chronicles “Memory” about the Shumilino region were published in 1985.

The Shumilino region has 108 historic and architectural sights (of them 14 are archaeological, three architectural and 91 historical).

The most significant ones are the sights of architecture in a pseudo-Russian style dating back to the late 19th – early 20th centuries:

· St. Sergius and Holy Dormition Orthodox Churches;

· Holy Dormition Orthodox Church, the end of the 19th century (the village of Pobeda), an architectural sight in a pseudo-Russian style;

· St. Sergius Church, 19-20th centuries (the village of Leskovichi);

· von Amburger Estate in the town of Obol;

· Sirotino railway station built in 1886 and renamed Shumilino in the 1960s.