The legend has it that a hard-working lad called Sharachok, Grey-eyed, was plowing a piece of land that he had inherited from his father when he found a spring of water. The people started to come to the spring to fetch some water, and the lands around it got the name of Sharkovshchina. The chronicles first mention this name in 1503.

Sharkovshchina district occupies the north-western part of Vitebsk region. The borough of Sharkovshchina is located within 210 km from Vitebsk, and 195 km from Minsk.

The District had been reformed several times before it got its present borders in 1966. The area of the District is 1.1 thousand square kilometers; the population is 21.4 thousand people residing in 272 localities; its centre is the borough of Sharkovshchina with one third of the total population of the District.

District's government consists of 7 villages’ Councils of Deputies.

Sharkovshchina district is mostly agricultural with 2 industrial enterprises: a vegetable-crops drying and tinned-food factory and a centre for cooperative production. They specialize in processing crops, producing pastry and meat convenience foods.

11 agricultural production cooperatives, 2 agricultural enterprises, and 34 farms in the District specialize in cattle breeding and crops production.

In accordance with the state program of Rural Revival and Development, the District will have 10 agro-towns by 2010. 2 villages, Bil’djugi and Luzhki, were the first to acquire the status of agro-towns.

Almost one fifth of the District’s territory is woodlands; 6% of the District’s territory is covered with marshes. One of the most widely known areas of marshes is called Jel’nya and it is protected as a national hydrologic nature reserve. The territory of the District has 36 more locally protected nature reserves.

There are old parks of the XVIII-XIX centuries, palaces, churches and cathedrals lovingly preserved on the territory of the District.

Print version