Pukhavichi are known since the beginning of  the 11th century. This time, it was a small settlement in Polatsk Duchy and later in Minsk duchy. From the 14th century Pukhavichi were in the squad of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Jews lived in Pukhovichi since the third qauter of  the 16th century.
The second part of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century were awful for Pukhavichi and Belarus. During the war between Moscow of tsar Alexey Mikhailovich and Rech Pospolitaya (a union of Polish kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) Pukhavichi and its jewry suffered great of the tsar`s anti-jewish policy. In 1700 another war began. It was a long  bloody battle of Russia of Peter the Great and Rech Paspalitaya of August II against Sweden Karl IX. 
In 1793 Russian troops occupied Pukhavichi. It became a part of Igumen uezd in Minsk gubernia. At  the end of 18th - the beginning of 19th Pukhavichi was a possession of Sulistrouski family, later of Fribes and Estkam families and after this  - of Valkovich family.
746 jews lived in Pukhavichi in 1847. The results of the  famous Russian census of 1897 for Pukhovichi were - 1910 inhabitants - 1.761 - jews.
According to famous russian geographer, author of "Rossija. Polnoe geographicheskoe opisanie nashego Otechestva" ("Russia. Full geographical  description of our Motherland)  V.P. Semionov in the beginning of  the 20th century Pukhavichi was a small town (Belarussian - Miastechka, Yiddish - shtetl) near the river Svislach. Pukhavichi had an orthodox church (was built in 1841) in the place of former uniat church, a school,  three synagogues and a lot of shops. The majority of miastechka population were jews. Their main occupation was a small trade. Pukhavichi had  four fairs per year (on the  2nd of February, on the 9th of May, the 6th of  December and 10 days after the date of Orthodox Easter).
1905-07 was a period of the first Russian revolution. Pukhavichi jews took an active part in revolutionary movement. The situation in shtetl wasn`t so good for Russian authorities. According to  the special command of Minsk governer troops from Minsk were moved in Pukhavichi.
After World War I, February and Bolshevik revolution Polish troops from October, 1919, till April, 1920,  occupied Pukhavichi. According to the Riga treaty between Poland and Soviet Russia of Mnarch, 1921, Pukhavichi was on the Soviet - control terrtitory. On the 17th of July, 1924 the goverment of Belarussian Soviet Socialist republic created a Pukhavichi region with the center in Pukhavichi.
On the 22nd of June, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded Soviet Union. Several days after the German occupation the germans shooted  Pukhavichi region jewry on Papova mountain in Blon`. Jewish history of Pukhavichi ended.

 

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