Lepel - City of Belarus

Lepel is a town located in the center of the Lepiel District in the Vitebsk Province of Belarus near Lepiel Lake. Lepiel its population in the 1998 census was 19,400.

There are three theories about the origin of the name Lepel. The first is that the name 'Lepel' come from the word "lepene" which means "lake between the lime-groves". The second is that the name comes from the Belarusian word meaning "the best place to live in". The third theory for the name Lepel is that it derives from the Belarusian word meaning "well-developed pottery".

The first known mention of Lepel dates back to 1439. In the fifteenth century, the town belonged to the Grand Lithuanian Dukes. In 1439 thanks to efforts of a Roman Catholic priest, Kucharski, Grand Lithuanian Duke Sigismund Kestutaitis' son Michael gave Lepel to the Vitebsk Roman Catholic church. King Sigismund I the Old subsequently confirmed the gift and in 1541 by approbation of pontiff, the townlands were gifted to the Vilnius Cathedral.

After Polatsk was captured by the Russian army in 1563, the Vilnius government was no longer able to protect its property from the attacks of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The decision was made to donate Lepel to King Sigismund II Augustus on the erroneous assumption that the king would return the gift by awarding the Vilnius government with other property of the same value. Instead, the king gave the property by way of life tenure to Yury Zenovich, the mayor of Smolensk. After Yury Zenovich died, Sigismund gave the town to Michael Daragastaisky and it then came into the hands of Stefan Batory. Batory eventually returned the property to the Vilnius government when Polatsk was liberated.

It remained difficult for the Vilnius authorities to protect their holdings in Lepel and thus the decision was made in 1586 to sell the townlands to Lew Sapieha, a leading politician. Sapieha eventually donated Lepel in 1609 to some Vilnius lawyers who had met in convocation in St. Michael's Cathedral.

After the annexation of Belarus to Russia in 1772, Lepel remained in Lithuania due to the border being traced by the river Dvina. After the second division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1793, Lepel was joined to Russia and in 1802 the town became the center of the region. The town suffered greatly in the 1812 French invasion of Russia thanks to passing troops razing many buildings to the ground. On the 9th of September 1852 Lepel was awarded its own coat of arms. Jan Czeczot worked for the direction of channels in Lepel during the period 1833-1839.

By 1913 Lepel had lost its strategy and trade concernment and was a quiet and typically regional town center.