Founded no later than 1400 as Böttgersdorf. In the same year, 1400, Ulrich von Jungingen (1360–1410), who was then Komtur of Balga, built a church in Böttchersdorf.
In 1785 Böttchersdorf was classified as a royal village (Königlich Dorf) with a church. The church in Böttchersdorf was a "daughter" church of the church in Allenau (Porechye). The village had 28 households.
By 1818 the number of households had risen to 33, and Böttchersdorf itself was then classified as a "Kölmer and peasant village" (Cöllmisch und Bauer-Dorf).
In the 19th century Böttchersdorf was a village which from 1818 formed a rural community in the Kreis Friedland (Pravdinsk), renamed in 1927 the Landkreis Bartenstein (Bartoszyce, Poland).
The church in Böttchersdorf belonged to the united parish of Böttchersdorf-Allenau (Sevskoye-Porechye) and was the parish church for the surrounding villages and estates. In 1871 Böttchersdorf had 50 residential houses, in which 105 families and four single men lived. On 11 June 1874 the rural community of Böttchersdorf was included in the newly established Amtsbezirk Böttchersdorf. Residents of Böttchersdorf held the post of head of the Amtsbezirk in 1903–20 (the landowner Romahn), in 1920–27 (the cantor Hoffmann) and in 1927–? (the estate owner August Amling).
At the end of the 19th century two windmills operated in Böttchersdorf, on its north-western and south-eastern outskirts, but in the 20th century the north-western mill was dismantled. In 1898 a railway line was built from Königsberg to Friedland (Pravdinsk) and Gerdauen (Zheleznodorozhny), and a station was opened on it near Böttchersdorf.
On 30 September 1928 the rural community of Böttchersdorf was merged with the Klein Pothlack community (Razdolye) and the abolished Gutsbezirke of Grünthal (Zelentsovo) and Krügerwalde (Razdolye) into the new rural community of Böttchersdorf.
On 27 January 1945 Böttchersdorf was taken by units of the 28th Army of the 3rd Belorussian Front.
On 17 June 1947 Böttchersdorf was renamed the settlement of Sevskoye. The Sevskoye Village Council was created at the same time. In 1955 the settlement had 52 houses. In 1972 only 36 houses remained, and a school was operating. By the end of the 1970s the dismantling of the Pravdinsk–Zheleznodorozhny railway had begun. In 2006, because of the dilapidated state of the former Kreishaus building in Zheleznodorozhny, a boarding school for orphans moved to Sevskoye. As of 2021 the settlement has 85 residential houses and public buildings, with a boarding school and a post office.
Sights: the ruins of the church (1400), a mass grave of Soviet soldiers (monument 1956, 309 people), a bust of Lenin.
Population change: 1867 – 556, 1871 – 528, 1885 – 471, 1905 – 454, 1910 – 452, 1986 – 330, 2002 – 437, 2010 – 361, 2012 – 368 inhabitants.
Population change of the merged Böttchersdorf community: 1925 – 682, 1933 – 620, 1939 – 629 inhabitants.
Composition of the population of Böttchersdorf in 1871: all 528 Protestant Christians, children under 10 – 130, literate – 306 (77%), blind – 1, deaf-mute – 1, insane – 1.
For reference
The Amtsbezirk Böttchersdorf
On 11 June 1874 Amtsbezirk No. 2 Böttchersdorf was established in the Landkreis Friedland, comprising two rural communities, Böttchersdorf (Sevskoye) and Groß Pothlack (54°25'04'' N 21°06'26'' E), as well as four Gutsbezirke: Grünthal (Zelentsovo), Heyde (Kostyukovka), Hohenstein (Krasnopolye) and Lawdt (54°23'14'' N 21°01'10'' E). In 1893 the rural community of Groß Pothlack left the Amtsbezirk Böttchersdorf. In 1897 the rural community of Klein Pothlack (Razdolye) joined the Amtsbezirk Böttchersdorf. On 30 September 1928 the rural communities of Böttchersdorf (Sevskoye) and Klein Pothlack (Razdolye) and the Gutsbezirke of Grünthal (Zelentsovo) and Krügerwalde (Razdolye) were merged into the new rural community of Böttchersdorf. At the same time the Gutsbezirke of Lawdt and Heyde (Kostyukovka) left the Amtsbezirk Böttchersdorf and became part of the Amtsbezirk Allenau (Porechye). The Amtsbezirk Böttchersdorf now consisted of two rural communities: Böttchersdorf (Sevskoye) and Hohenstein (Krasnopolye). Its composition did not change again until 1945.
Allenau-Böttchersdorf parish: Allenau (Porechye), Böttchersdorf (Sevskoye), Groß Pothlack (part of Razdolye), Grünthal (Zelentsovo), Hohenstein (Krasnopolye), Klein Pothlack (Razdolye), Stadienberg (part of Pravdinsk).
Photos: Bildarchiv Ostpreußen, bildarchiv-ostpreussen.de
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
