Shamovka (Bryansk region)

This settlement is located on a hill on the left bank of the Snov River (the right tributary of the Desna River ) 10-12 km after its sharp turn in the upper reaches from the east to the southwest just before the left tributary of the Solova River flows into it from the east.

The village of Shamovka, now the Klimovsky district of the Bryansk region, arose no later than the 17th century in connection with the events of the Time of Troubles and because of its geographical (when two boggy rivers merged from the west and south) and the military-political (“boundary” between the Moscow kingdom and The Polish-Lithuanian Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) of the situation in those times was administratively connected with the oldest Starodub, thirty miles to the north-east of it and the Cossacks of a very mottled composition settled in it. The Cossack foundation can be traced even now as part of the population of Shamovka (as well as the majority of settlements in the okrug) in dialect, songs, proverbs, sayings, as well as in the names of the majority of residents, who are essentially the nicknames of the Cossacks - the founders of the village: these are Demenok, Kust, Kuchka, although in the latter case, due to the Little Russian origin of the then local bureaucracy, the final letter in the documents is replaced by “o”. Currently, the carriers of these three surnames include groups of families that are unable to trace kinship with other families or groups of families - carriers of the same surname. At the same time, by the beginning of the 21st century, the most numerous name in Shamovka was also clearly of Cossack origin, but it appeared here at the end of the 19th century, thanks to the abolition of serfdom, from the “priymak” from the neighboring village due to the river. This surname is Dubenok. Its owners have black hair, dark-skinned skin and, especially for men, the hooked noses of “dyubka”, which in local dialect means “beak” - presumably indicating the presence of Caucasian genes and origin from the Terek Cossacks. Currently, in Shamovka there are about 40 residential buildings with a permanent population, at least a third of which are settled by single pensioners.