Pechory (Russian: Печоры; Estonian and Seto: Petseri) is a town and the administrative centre of Pechorsky District in the Pskov Oblast, Russia.

[10]Pechory was founded as a posad in the 16th century near the Pskov-Caves Monastery established in 1473 by the Orthodox priest Jonah, who fled Dorpat (now Tartu) for the Pskov Republic.

[2] During the campaign of oprichnina introduced by Ivan the Terrible, Pechory remained within zemschina, or regular municipal lands subject to the rule of the government.

[14] It was besieged numerous times by Russia's enemies: Stephen Báthory's forces sacked the settlement during the Siege of Pskov in 1581–1582,[2] and the Swedes or Polish stormed Pechory in 1592, 1611, 1615, and 1630, and from 1655 to 1657.

[20] There were leather and malt factories in the town, a postal and telegraph station, four schools including one maintained by the monastery, and a hospital.

Under the terms of the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty that stipulated the border[22] along the actual front line between the Red and Estonian Armies, so Pechory and the adjacent Western part of Setomaa were ceded to Estonia.

[27] During World War II, after the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union in 1940, the town initially remained part of the Estonian SSR.

The town was occupied by the German Army from July 10, 1941 until August 11, 1944[2] and administered as part of the Generalbezirk Estland of Reichskommissariat Ostland.

In 1976, the town's boundaries were further expanded to encompass the railway station and a few adjacent villages, including Kunichina Gora,[30] which now hosts a border crossing point.

[35][36] A series of inter-governmental consultations took place in the decade that followed, and on February 18, 2014, the new version of the Border Treaty was signed by both countries.

[37] The latest version leaves the agreed border intact with a few minor exemptions not affecting the town of Pechory.