Khmelinets Village

Khmelinets has been known since 1615; by 1670 it was a village with a church and 47 households. In 1859 a sugar factory was built here — a rare industrial episode for the rural interior. The village stands on the Khmelinka river, a right tributary of the Don, 74 kilometres from Lipetsk. Its main vertical is the half-ruined Intercession church of 1805: in the 1930s it lost its dome and was used as a club, with a St Nicholas chapel serving as the church today. The village also holds a memorial to twice Hero of the Soviet Union, the pilot Mikhail Stepanishchev: a bronze bust by the sculptor Georgy Neroda, unveiled in 1948; the estate and the monument are protected heritage of the oblast. It is a typical 'living' point of the Black Earth interior: a school, an administration, monuments and a river bank. It fits a route with Zadonsk (the neighbouring district) and Tyunino.