Sloboda

an urban-type settlement in Bobrov Raion, Voronezh Oblast, RSFSR; located near the Krenovoe railroad station on the Georgiu-Dezh-Povorino line. Sloboda has a furniture factory, a branch of the Georgiu-Dezh Production Association “Don,” and a poultry hatchery. It is also noted for the Krenovoe Stud Farm, the home of the Orlov Trotter. Educational institutions include a forestry training facility, an all-Union correspondence school for forestry, and a vocational school for horse trainers, equestrians, and veterinary assistants. Sloboda also has a sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis.

a type of settlement in feudal Russia.

From the 12th century through the first half of the 16th century, the term sloboda referred to individual settlements, including those around walled cities, or a group of settlements whose inhabitants were exempt from taxes and other obligations —hence, the term sloboda, from svoboda, or “freedom.” In the 16th century, slobody consisting of coachmen, state artisans, foreigners, or sluzhilye liudi (military servitors), such as strel’tsy (musketeers) and cannoneers, sprang up in Russian cities. In the first half of the 18th century, as a regular army was established and other state reforms were carried out, slobody were converted into ordinary villages or urban-type settlements, although they were still called slobody; slobody in cities were made city districts. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the term sloboda sometimes denoted suburban industrial settlements. In the USSR the term sloboda has been preserved in the names of certain populated localities.