Mozyr: population and city overview

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

For many countries of the world, this is just a small town, but it is of great importance for the Belarusian economy. One of the country's two oil refineries is located here. In terms of population, Mozyr ranks 12th in Belarus.

General information

Located in the Gomel region, the city of district subordination is the administrative center of the district of the same name. East, 133 km, is the regional center, north-west, 220 km, - Minsk. The population of Mozyr in 2018 was approximately 111,800. The city covers an area of 36.74 km2. It was built on a hilly terrain within the Mozyr ridge.

Roads pass through the city, connecting it with other cities of the region and the Ukrainian city of Ovruch. Nearby is the oil pipeline "Druzhba". The largest Belarusian river port, Pkhov, operates on the Pripyat River, which flows through the settlement.

Many industrial enterprises are developing in the city, the key industries are oil refining, petrochemical and woodworking. The largest city enterprises:oil refinery, cable and distillery plants. It is also home to the largest s alt production in the country, the plant is called Mozyrs alt.

Foundation

It is believed that the first settlement, from which the construction of the modern city began, arose in the Kimborovka tract (in the VIII century). Here, where traces of a fortified ancient settlement were found. In subsequent centuries (XI-XII centuries), city fortifications were built on Castle Hill.

The first written mention dates back to 1155, when Prince Yuri Dolgoruky of Kyiv (the future founder of Moscow) handed it over to another Russian prince, Novgorod-Seversky Svyatoslav Olgovich. How many people lived in Mozyr at that time has not been reliably established.

There is no generally accepted etymology of the city's name. Some experts explain the origin from the ethnonym "Mazury" (a group of Polish settlers - Mazovshan), however, the toponym appeared much earlier than this ethnonym. There is also a version linking the name of the city with Iranian-Turkic words:

• mazar - hill, grave;
• mozhary - rugged terrain with hills and hills, which exactly matches the terrain;
• mozra - a farm, villages, settlements.

The most popular version: the name comes from the Finno-Ugric word "mosar", which translates as a swamp, a wet wetland, a lowland overgrown with bushes and grass.

History

Mozyris one of the oldest cities in Belarus, already in 1577 received Magdeburg rights, when it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The settlement received the status of a city in 1756, when it was part of the Commonwe alth. The population of Mozyr joined the uprising of Khmelnytsky, for which the Polish-Lithuanian troops staged a massacre here. Several churches have been preserved in the city since those times, including the Church of St. Michael (at the Bernardine monastery).

In 1793, as a result of the second division of the Commonwe alth, the city went to the Russian Empire. During the Civil War, it was captured first by German and then by Polish troops, who staged mass Jewish pogroms in the city. During the Great Patriotic War, it was under German occupation for a long time. The Jewish population of Mazyr was driven into the ghetto and then completely destroyed.

Population

The first census in the Mozyr povet was conducted in 1811, according to the revision tale, the population of Mozyr was 1280 people, most of them belonging to the bourgeoisie. There were 500 households in the city. About 4% of them belonged to Catholics, represented by the gentry, 18% - to Jews and 78% - to Orthodox Christians.

In the pre-war years (1940), there were 18,500 inhabitants in the city, of which Jews accounted for 36.09% of the total population of Mozyr. The Jewish population was almost completely destroyed during the German occupation.

The first post-war data (1959) show that the numberpopulation increased to 26,430 people. In the subsequent period, up to 1979, the population of Mozyr grew rapidly (from 4.65% to 5.74% per year). In recent decades, these rates have declined significantly. According to the latest Soviet data (1989), 100,250 people lived in the city. In the next two decades, the number of inhabitants either decreased or increased. The population of the city of Mozyr reached its maximum number (111,773 people) in 2018.