Novogrudok or Navahrudak (Belarusian: Навагрудак; Russian: Новогрудок; Polish: Nowogródek, Lithuanian: Naugardukas; Yiddish: נאַוואַראַדאָק, romanized: Navaradok) is a town in Grodno Region, Belarus.

After 1915, Novogrudok was occupied by the Imperial German Army for three years in World War I, by the Second Polish Republic until the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.

It was a large settlement in the remote Western lands of the Krivichs, which came under the control of the Ancient Rus' state at the end of the 10th century.

[6] Archaeological excavations made by Gurevich F. D. in different places of the city, gave a huge number of interesting finds (Byzantine glass, jewellery, and even the ruins of a house with painted walls from the inside, which had suspended lanterns in which oil was lit) this, as well as the conclusion of the archaeologist that the city appeared on this site no later than the 9th century, allows Novogrudok to claim the role of historical chronicle Novgorod.

[15] Research also suggests that a city already existed on-site in the 9th–10th centuries, which had trade links with Byzantium, the Near East, Western Europe and Scandinavia.

On the territory of the detinets, wooden ground buildings with wood burning stoves made out of adobe and plank floors were studied.

Graffiti with old Russian letters was found on fragments of frescoed plaster from building No.12 ("house of the boyar" or "powalush") of the 12th century on the Small Castle (an ancient roundabout city).

[17][18] Trade relations in the 12th–13th centuries were far-reaching, as evidenced by many imports: from Kyiv came glass bracelets, non-ferrous metal jewellery, engolpions, icons, spindle whorls, faience vessels from Iran, glassware from Byzantium and Syria, from the Baltic – amber.

Novogrudok was a major settlement in the remote western lands of the Krivichs that came under Kievan Rus' control at the end of the 10th century.

[21]In the 13th century, the Kievan Rus disintegrated due to Asian nomadic incursions, which climaxed with the Mongol horde's Siege of Kiev (1240), resulting in the sack of Kiev and leaving a regional geopolitical vacuum in which the East Slavs splintered along pre-existing tribal lines and formed several independent, competing principalities.

[12] Maciej Stryjkowski, asserts that Ringold's father, Algimunt, ruled in Novogrudok over all Rus' and Lithuania, starting from Vilija River up to Starodub, Chernigov, Turau and Karachaev, as well as all of Podlasie with its adjacent castles, Brest, Mielnik, Drohiczyn, etc., holding them in peaceful tenure.

Vaišvilkas, the son and successor of Mindaugas, took monastic vows in Lavrashev Monastery[35] near Novgorodok and founded an Orthodox convent there.

[36] The enmity between Mindaugas and his relatives, who were refuged in Volhynia, led to a great war with the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which made several major campaigns against the city.

[37][better source needed][dubious – discuss] After breaking the peace in 1258, Vaišvilkas again became a duke in Novogrudok, and then passed it along with the entire country to Shvarn.

[42] In 1422, Vytautas the Great founded the Roman Catholic Transfiguration Church in Novogrudok, in which the wedding of the king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Jogaila with Sophia of Halshany took place.

On 18 March 1595, King Sigismund III Vasa granted the city a coat of arms depicting Saint Michael the Archangel.

In 1597, Sigismund III Vasa gave the townspeople of Novogrudok the privilege of 2 fairs a year for 2 weeks on the Catholic holidays Epiphany and Pentecost.

In the 16th–18th centuries, Novogrudok suffered numerous fires (1578, 1599, 1613, 1652, the most severe – in 1751, when 167 houses, 4 churches, the town hall and the Governor's office burned down) and epidemics (1590, 1592, 1603, 1708).

[50] During the War in Defense of the Constitution, in early June 1792, Novogrudok was attacked by the 33,000-strong Tsarist army led by Mikhail Krechetnikov.

In mid-June 1792, after the defeat in the battle of Mir, Lithuanian troops under Duke Louis of Württemberg's command retreated through Novogrudok to Grodno.

On 13 May 1922, Adam Mickiewicz's eldest son, Wladyslaw, came to Novogrudok to stay, and on 30 October 1922, the chief of state, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, came here.

Several other Polish presidents visited the city: Stanisław Wojciechowski (25-27 May 1924) and Ignacy Mościcki (September 1929 and the end of June 1931).

At the beginning of World War II, after 17 September 1939, Soviet Air Forces' bombers began dropping leaflets written in broken Polish over the city, announcing the imminent liberation "from the yoke of the lords" and other oppressors.

On 22 June 1941, the city was subjected to German bombing, the former Starostvo, formerly the Radziwill Palace, and shopping malls were destroyed as Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Thus, on 21 August 1944, in the village of Surkontakh, the commander of the Home Army's Novogrudok partisan district, Lieutenant Colonel Maciej Kalenkiewicz, nicknamed "Kotvich" (1906-1944) from the Khubala detachment, was killed in a battle with tenfold superior units of the NKVD.

[76] On 10 September 2011, in honour of the 500th anniversary of the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Magdeburg law (freed from feudal duties, the power of voivodes, gave the right to create a magistrate-a self-government body, its seal and coat of arms – the image of the Archangel Michael) in the centre of the city as a memory of the history and former greatness of the ancient city, a memorial sign was installed.

The concept of "solid ruins" was approved, developed and reviewed at the Republican scientific and methodological meeting, the purpose of which was to reveal all seven towers of the Navahrudak castle, as well as the spinning walls.

[78] The metal structure and the brick prigruz will preserve the ruins of the Kostelnaya tower, stabilize it and complete the object's conservation.

437, Novogrudok castle was included in the list of 27 objects whose conservation costs (in terms of capital expenditures) can be financed from the national budget.

[80] Novogrudok is twinned with:[82] On 28 February 2022, the Polish city of Elbląg ended its partnership with Navahradak as a response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and its active support by the Republic of Belarus.