Serpeysk (russian: Серпейск, pl, Sierpiejsk) is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

('' selo'') in

Meshchovsky District Meshchovsky District (russian: Мещо́вский райо́н) is an administrativeCharter of Kaluga Oblast, Article 4 and municipalLaw #354-OZ district (raion), one of the twenty-four in Kaluga Oblast, Russia. It is located in the center ...

of Kaluga Oblast,

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

, located on the Serpeyka River. The locality has a

canting arms Canting arms are heraldic bearings that represent the bearer's name (or, less often, some attribute or function) in a visual pun or rebus. French heralds used the term (), as they would sound out the name of the armiger. Many armorial all ...

, depicting two

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...

s, with russian: link=no, серп, pl, link=no, sierp meaning ''sickle''.

History

It was first noted in 1406 as a military fort of the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was Partitions of Poland, partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire, Habsburg Empire of ...

on its border with Muscovy. Later on, it was annexed to Muscovy by Ivan III of Russia, then recaptured by the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...

, and eventually incorporated into Muscovite Russia after the signing of Treaty of Polyanovka which marked the end of the Smolensk War in 1634. Once stripped of its garrison, the town dwindled into oblivion. The oldest surviving buildings are two churches, one dating from 1771 and the other constructed in the 1780s. In the late 19th century, it had a population of 1,818.

References

Rural localities in Kaluga Oblast Smolensk Voivodeship Meshchovsky Uyezd {{KalugaOblast-geo-stub