On 8 September 1514 the famous Battle of Orsha occurred, between allied Grand Duchy of Lithuania with Kingdom of Poland and Muscovite army.

From the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries Orsha was a notable religious centre, with dozens of Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic churches and orders.

On April 3, the day after the central government had imposed consumer price increases, workers at several Minsk factories walked out raising the miners' demand for wages indexed to inflation.

The next morning, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and leaders of eight of the other Soviet republics published a joint declaration in the papers agreeing to democratic elections for the Soviet parliament and the presidency, a new union treaty that would "radically increase the role of the union republics," and measures to soften the impact of the price increase, but also the introduction of a "special work regime" in many industries.

[6] In response, the Orsha strike committee issued a proposal for all local workers to block the railway junction, strategically located on the line linking Moscow and Leningrad to Eastern and Western Europe.

On the 25th, the Belarusian authorities concentrated the republic's KGB and riot police forces on Orsha, but were resisted by the strikers who sent fuel trains primed to explode down the tracks.

Gorbachev mobilized the nearby military forces in Pskov with instructions to restore order over the railway; however many officers declared their refusal to comply, and brigade commander Gennady Sidorov professed a "lack of understanding" of the mission.

Fearing a clash, and seizing on the government's offer to negotiate with its representatives and grant it radio and air time, the SKB suspended the general strike that evening.

OSGOEINT reported on the 571st Aircraft Repair Plant (ARP) located at Orsha Airfield (Balbasovo Air Base).

The report goes on to mention recent investment agreements with Ukraine where private firms planned on providing $12 million to finance facility upgrades during the 2012-2016 period.