Obal or Obol ( be, Обаль; russian: Оболь) is an urban-type settlement in

Shumilina District Shumilina District is a second-level administrative subdivision (raion) of Belarus in the Vitebsk Region. Its administrative seat is the urban-type settlement of Shumilina. The other urban-type settlement within the raion is Obal Joktan (also wri ...

, Vitebsk Region, Belarus. In 2023, it had a population of 2,139.

History

Obal was known since the 16th century as a village of the Połock Voivodeship, in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. in 1772, following the

Partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...

, it became part of the Russian Empire. In 1866, the construction of the

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

Oryol Oryol ( rus, Орёл, p=ɐˈrʲɵl, lit. ''eagle''), also transliterated as Orel or Oriol, is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast situated on the Oka River, approximately south-southwest of Moscow. It is part of the Central Fed ...

railway contributed to its growth. During the Second World War, German troops occupied the village from August 1941 to June 26, 1944. In 1968, the status of Obol was raised from village to urban-type settlement.

Geography

Located in the center of Vitebsk Region, Obal lies between Vitebsk ( southeast) and Polotsk ( northwest), and is crossed by the Obal River. It is located from Shumilina, from Novopolotsk and from Minsk. The town is served by the P20 highway and by the Smolensk-Vitebsk-

Daugavpils Daugavpils (; russian: Двинск; ltg, Daugpiļs ; german: Dünaburg, ; pl, Dyneburg; see other names) is a state city in south-eastern Latvia, located on the banks of the Daugava River, from which the city gets its name. The parts of the c ...

railway.

Notable people

* Zinaida Portnova (1926–1944), Russian partisan, Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1942 she joined the Belarusian resistance movement, becoming a member of the local underground

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (russian: link=no, Всесоюзный ленинский коммунистический союз молодёжи (ВЛКСМ), ), usually known as Komsomol (; russian: Комсомол, links=n ...

organization in Obal.

Twin towns

Ödeshög Ödeshög () is a locality and the seat of Ödeshög Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is th ...

( Ödeshög Municipality, Sweden)Info at Ödeshög municipal website

References

External links

* {{commonscat-inline, Obaĺ Urban-type settlements in Belarus Populated places in Vitebsk Region Shumilina District