Polochane

Polochane 

a branch of the early Russian tribal union of the Krivichi. The Polochane, who settled along the middle Zapad-naia Dvina River in the ninth century, were named after the Polota River, a tributary of the Zapadnaia Dvina. The area they occupied extended southward to the upper reaches of the Svis-loch’ River and along the left bank of the middle course of the Berezina River to the land of the Dregovichians. In the southeast the Polochane bordered with the Smolensk Krivichi, in the north and east with the Izborsk Krivichi and the Novgorod Slavs, and in the west with the Lithuanian tribes. The union of the Polochane led to the emergence of the Polotsk Principality.