It features a ponderous Neoclassical cathedral (1791–96, design by Giacomo Quarenghi), seventeenth-century stone walls, and several ecclesiastic foundations, dating from the sixteenth century.
The region received its name after the Severians, an East Slavic tribe which inhabited the territory in the late 1st millennium A.D. Their main settlements included the present-day cities of Novhorod-Siverskyi, Chernihiv (Chernigov), Putyvl (Putivl), Hlukhiv (Glukhov), Liubech, Kursk, Rylsk, Starodub, Trubchevsk, Sevsk, Bryansk, and Belgorod.
Sviatoslav fled to Chernigov but was ordered to relinquish his city, Novgorod-Seversky, to his cousins, Iziaslav Davidovich and Vladimir Davidovich.
During that time the Soviet forces were advancing across the north-eastern Ukraine and occupied Rylsk and Novhorod-Siversky.