STARODUB  , a

town of Russia, in the government of Chernigov, 98 m . N.E. of the city of Chernigov . It is regularly built, with broad straight streets, and the houses are surrounded by large gardens . Pop . 12,451; Little Russians with about 5000 Jews . Tanning and the manufacture of copper wares are carried on, and there is a trade in corn and hemp exported to Riga and St Petersburg . As early as the rrth and 12th centuries Starodub was a bone of contention between different Russian princes, who appreciated its strategic position . The Mongols seem to have destroyed it in the middle of the 13th century, and its name does not reappear until the following century . During the 15th and 16th centuries the Russians and Lithuanians were continually disputing the possession of its fortress, and at the beginning of the 17th century it became a stronghold of Poland .