Drogichin

Drohichyn is a small town situated in Brest region, a district center with the population of about 4 thousand people. It is more than 500 years and there are unique monuments of Belarussian architecture on its territory.  

A brief historical overview

The town was first mentioned in chronicles in 1452. At that time it was not a town, the village was called Dovecherovichi. According to scientists the origin of the word “Drohichyn” has several versions:  

On the territory of the modern town there was a settlement of one of the three main Belarusian tribes, which was called “dryhavičy” (“The Dregoviches”).

The second version is associated with a view that the root of the “droh”, a road, is a key one. This can be explained by the fact that Drohichyn has always been at the intersection of the main routes; nowadays the highway Brest-Pinsk passes through it.

Drohichyn as many other Belarusian towns had a difficult path of development from a small village to the center of Duchy of the same name. Its territory suffered greatly from the Tatars, then it was occupied by the Lithuanians and flourished before becoming a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Under Polish rule the welfare of the residents of Drohichyn deteriorated.

Being included in the Russian Empire Drohichyn passed under the control of different provinces. During the World War I its territory was occupied by German force and then by Polish army.  So, as a part of Poland, Drohichyn met the Great Patriotic war, during which it was occupied by the German army again and rescued from occupation only a few years later in 1944. Drohichyn district went down in history thanks to the heroism of partisans; here occurred the famous forty-day defense of the Dnieper-Bug canal. Drogichin acquired the status of a town only in 1967.

The population and economic abilities of the region

According to the information of early 2016 the population of the town is 14 898 people. On the territory of the town there are successful functioning factories and plants of the Republican scale:  the pharmaceutical city-forming enterprise “Ekzon”, “Frost and Co” and many others

Sights and tourism

The main architectural property of Drohichyn is a well-preserved wooden working Purification Church built in 1862. The Church of the Virgin Mary was built in 1928 but in contrast to Purification Church it does not work. Besides that in Drohichyn district there are several key monuments of Christian architecture: Bezdezh Holy Trinity Church (1784),  Vavulichi Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (1737), Volovel Yuriev Church (1766), Detkovichi Intercession Church (1740) which is the heritage not only of Drohichyn district but of the whole Belarus.

Every year Orthodox believers from all corners of the Republic come here to the festival “Sing to God, sing praises to His name”.