Krupki

Krupki (Крупкі, Krupki, Крупки) is a small, rural town in Krupki Raion, near the cities of Minsk and Mogilev in Belarus.

History before 1914
It was founded in 1067 and existed during both the medieval Kingdom of Poland and of the great Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Krupki was then absorbed in to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, after which, the district was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793. Krupki became the administrative centre of it’s district and got its own council in 1900. The town’s coat of arms is a white, blue and yellow shield. The old, wooden Bogoroditskaya Church in the near by village of Hodovcy is of tourist and historic value.



The town's population was 1,800 (mostly Jewish) people in 166 houses, according to a 1895 Russian Encyclopedia, and 2,080 (largely non 'Hebrews') in 1926 as according to a similar reference book of 1961. There is no apparent evidence that any of Russia's endemic famines or pre-Revolutionary bread riots had broken out in Krupki town or its immediate environs.

Jewish community
The Yiddish Jewish settlement in Krupki is first noted in the 17th century and was thriving by the middle of the 18th century. About 40% of the Jews were employed as labours and craftsmen and a Yiddish school was established in the town. There were three Hebrew schools in Krupki by the 1890s according to the 1895 Russian Encyclopedia.

About 75% of the local Jews fled the town during the Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War, for either Western Europe or United States. Only 870 of them remained in situ by 1939. There were also small Polish, Poleszuk(“Tutejsi”), Lithuanian and Roma settlements in Krupki.

World War I and World War II
The town was briefly taken by a small unit of Prussian troops during the later part of the war. Belarus first declared independence on 25 March 1918, forming the Belarusian People's Republic and later the Communist Party (bolsheviks) of Lithuania and Belorussia took it over in Belarus. As a result of this turn of fate, Krupki was incorporated in the U.S.S.R. after the western parts of Belarus and the border city of Brest were given to Poland and the eastern parts, along with the city of Minsk, joined the U.S.S.R., between the two world wars. In September 1939, as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union invaded Poland and annexed its eastern lands, including most Polish-held Byelorussian land. Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

On September 18, 1941 the entire Jewish Ghetto, a community of 1,000 people were killed by the Nazis. The massacre was described in the diary of one of the German perpetrators. The first massacre involved 100 deaths near the grave yard, but a later killing spree killed roughly 900 other Jews in different location.

At first, the Germans told the Jews to gather together because that were being deported to Germany. But as the German forced then into a ditch, it was evident what the Germans had in mind. At this point, panic ensued.

Some of the Germans and Austrians involved in the incident were also injured during the panic. Very few, if any, of the local Belorussians, Roma/Gypsies or Poles supported the anti-Semitic attack and a few even actively opposed Nazi rule in their town altogether. Krupki was liberated by the Red Army during the June of 1944. Byelorussia was the hardest hit Soviet Republic in the war and remained in Nazi hands until it was liberated during the Minsk Offensive of 1944. The Jewish population of Byelorussia was devastated during The Holocaust and never recovered.

During the Cold War
The town was violently purged by the KGB. It was to stay as part of the Belorussian SSR until 1991, when it became part of the state of Belarus. Krupki's population had reached 5,000 by 1977.

The Junior Sergeant, Rifleman Kriptoshenko Vladimir Olegovich was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and Order of the Red Star (both posthumously) after being killed by grenade explosion during the 1988 Battle for Hill 3234 whilst serving in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.



The Oblast was moderately irradiated in the Chernobyl disaster.

The post-Soviet era
It became part of the state of Belarus in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A memorial cross dedicated to the victims of the Soviet purge was destroyed by Neo-Communists in 2009. There are various memorials, dedicated to the Soviet heroes Alena Kolesova, U.M. Martinkevich and space pilot Vladimir Kovalyonok.

Geography
Krupki lie 65 mi to the East from Minsk and set at a height of 174 m. The name means either to grind grain or the (grain) mill.

Demographics
It is mostly inhabited by Belorussians, but has Russian, Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish minorities. The population was around 5,000 in 1977.

Krupki has Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish communities. There is a synagogue and several churchs in the town and the nearby wooden orthodox church.

Economy and transportation
It consists of both woodworking, flax, forestry, the farming of fruit and vegetables and food processing. It once used to make pottery, produce bread and manufacture matches.

The roads are mostly tarmacked and are of an average grade for Belorussian road ways. The nearest airports are in Minsk and Krupki has a railway station.