Pochinok, Smolensk Oblast

Pochinok (Russian Починок ) is a Russian small town with 8776 inhabitants (as of October 14, 2010 ) in the Smolensk Oblast. It is the administrative center of the homonymous Rajons the Oblast.

Location

Pochinok lies some 400 kilometers west of Moscow, on the edge of the Smolensk hill country, on the banks of the right Sosch Creek Chmara. The distance to the northern regional center Smolensk is around 50 km, other nearby towns are Elnya and Roslawl. Approximately 50 km southwest of Pochinok is the boundary between Russia and Belarus.

History

Pochinok created in 1868 as a station settlement on the newly laid railway line Roslawl - Smolensk. The place name derives from a previously passed in this area small village whose name is very widely used in the Smolensk region as a village name. In Old Russian parlance it means as much as " newly founded settlement ".

By the end of the 19th century the town developed quickly into a trading center for regional agricultural products. 1924 Pochinok Rajonzentrum was, and two years later the city appointment. From July 1941 to September 1943, the city was in World War II under control of the German Wehrmacht.

Demographics

Note: Census data

Economy

The current industry landscape of the city is largely confined to firms that are related to agriculture and the processing of their products in conjunction.

Personalities

• El Lissitzky (1890-1941), painter, born in Pochinok