Karachev is a Russian city, the administrative center of the Karachev District of the Bryansk Region. It is located on the Snezhet river (inflow of Desna), 44 km away from Bryansk. Its population of 19.4 thousand people (2012) makes it the sixth largest city in the region.

Karachev is one of the most ancient Russian cities; it was for the first time recorded in the Ipatyevsky chronicle in 1146. The city’s name ("Korachev" originally) comes from the Slavic root “korka” or “korch” meaning “a crust”; at the same time there is a version that “Karachev” is derived from the Turkic and is translated as “black wood”, however the name of the city was approved long before the Tatar invasion.

From 1246, after disintegration of the Chernigov Principality, Karachev became the center of the specific Karachev Principality, and from the 2nd half of the 14th century it was under the authority of Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1500 it became a part of the Moscow State; it was the sentry city from the side of Crimea. In 1708 it was attributed to the Kiev Province, in 1719 it joined the Sevsky Province (from 1727 as a part of the Belgorod Province), and from 1778 it was a district city of the Oryol Province. In 1920 it became a part of the Bryansk Province. From 1929 it was a district town (originally as a part of the Western Region, of the Oryol Region from 1937, and of the Bryansk Region from 1944).

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Karachev turned from a typically petty-bourgeois and merchant city into a city with new enterprises, schools, clubs, and houses.

On October 5, 1941 fascist tanks rushed into Karachev from Oryol. In 22 months of occupation fascist bandits shot and hung up more than 1000 people. From August 5, 1943 fascists started the city destruction. All the buildings were blown up and those that could not be blown up were burnt down. There was not a single enterprise, educational institution, club, or theater left. Armies of the 11th Guards army (the commander general Ivan Hristoforovich Bagramyan) and the 11th army (the commander general Ivan Ivanovich Fedyuninsky) took part in fights for liberation of Karachev. The city was released from fascist aggressors on August 15, 1943.

Sightseeing

• St. Michael the Archangel's Cathedral in Karachev, Bryansk Region. It is located on the right coast of the Snezhet River, in the middle of a small area in the southern part of the city, in the territory of an ancient settlement of the 12th -17th centuries; it towers over surrounding buildings. In the early 17th century there was a wooden cathedral of Saint Michael the Archangel here, and in the 1st third of the 18th century it was replaced with a stone cathedral (known since 1745, according to documents).

• All Saints Church in Novaya Sloboda is located is located in the southeast suburb of the city, in former Orlovskaya Street. It stands on a high slope facing River Snezhet. It was constructed in 1865-74 by request of priest F. Korenev and headman A. Khudyakov instead of a wooden church built in 1776 and burnt down in 1863; in 1890 a stone fencing was built; in 1894 iconostases were renewed on means of parishioners. The brick and whitewashed building is executed in baroque-stylized shapes.

• Karachevsky Fire-Observation Tower

• Suburban village Berezhok boasts Voskresensky Church of the 17th century of the former Tikhonova Hermitage abolished in 1764 (in 2004 the monastery was restored).

• 7 km to the northeast of Karachev there is Odrino Settlement, where separate constructions of the ancient Odrino-Nikolayevsky Monastery — a refectory and the abbot building – have remained. Presently it houses a convent; new buildings are constructed.