Hlybokaye

Hlybokaye or Glubokoye is a town in Vitebsk Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Hlybokaye District. As of 2025, it has a population of 17,807. The town is located on the international road from Polotsk to Vilnius with the historic railway line to Woropajewo (Варапаева) completed in 1932 in the interwar Poland (the town was incorporated in 1940 by the Soviet Union after the 1939 invasion of Poland). Within the city limits there are two smaller lakes: Kahalnaye (Кагальнае) and Grand (Вялікае) from which the Birchwood river originates (Бярозаўка, Brzozówka in Polish). The first written records about the settlement date back to 1514. During World War II in occupied Poland the town's district of Berezwecz was the location of a massacre of up to 2,000–3,000 Polish prisoners by the Soviet NKVD secret police, and during the Nazi occupation from July 1941 to July 1944 several thousand Jews were murdered. As late as 2009 the remains of more than 20 victims probably shot by NKVD after the takeover of the area from Poland were again discovered in a basement of a local church.