LIDA

city and centre of Lida rayon (sector), Hrodno oblast (province), Belarus. Lida emerged in the 13th century as a fortified point of the Lithuanian duke Gediminas on the border between the Principality of Hrodno and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The city eventually passed to Poland and then to Russia (1795). It reverted to Poland in 1919 but was ceded to the Soviet Union in 1945. It contains the ruins of the 14th-century Gediminas Castle. Lida was for long a trading centre but is now a centre for food processing, with agricultural machine building and electrical engineering industries. Pop. (1991 est.) 95,000.