A surprisingly beautiful Belarusian city is located on the banks of the Dnieper. During its eight centuries of history, it has experienced many different events. The most incredible thing is that Rechitsa is the center of the Belarusian oil industry.
General information
The city is located in the Gomel region of the Republic of Belarus, it got its name from the Rechitsa River (Belarusian Rechytsa), a tributary of the Dnieper. It is the administrative center of the district of the same name. Rechitsa occupies an advantageous geographical position: the Gomel-Brest railway line and the republican highway Bobruisk-Loev pass nearby.
The first written mention of the city was found in the Novgorod Chronicle in 1213. Rechitsa was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1793.
Joining the Russian Empire
One of the ancient cities of Belarus in its long history has been captured and destroyed by foreign invaders more than once, but each time the population of Rechitsa returned and rebuilt their city. However, reliable data on the number of residents during that period has not been established.
It is known that at the beginning of the 19th century the population of Rechitsa was 1.77 thousand, of which 83% belonged to the philistine class. After the city was annexed to the Russian Empire (1793), in accordance with the decree of Empress Catherine II "Pale of Permanent Jewish Settlement", Jews were allowed to live and work only in specially designated places. Rechitsa was a legal city, so in 1800 two-thirds (1288 people) of the population were Jews.
Development in the 19th century
After joining Russia, a railroad was built to the city, a steamship service along the Dnieper was established. The economy of the county began to develop quite dynamically, agriculture expanded, the first industrial enterprises appeared, including two sawmills. After the abolition of serfdom, new jobs began to be occupied by peasants from the central Russian provinces.
By the beginning of the 19th century, Jews remained the national majority, there was a synagogue and prayer houses, a Jewish elementary school. In total, about 9,300 people lived in the city, of which the Jewish population of Rechitsa, according to the 1897 census, was 5,334 or 57.5% of the total population. The city became one of the regional centers of Hasidism in the Russian Empire. By 1914, the share of Jews in the population of the city of Rechitsa reached 60%.
First half of the 20th century
During the First World War, a significant part of the male population was mobilized into the army, the city was filled with refugees. Reduced industrial and agricultural production. After the hard years of revolution and civil warthe population of Rechitsa began to gradually recover. Industrialization began, many new industrial enterprises were opened and technical re-equipment was organized at old factories. During these years, built: a shipyard, match factories "Dnepr" and "10th October". Production was expanded at the nationalized plant of the Rikk brothers. which became known as the "Rechitsa wire and nail plant named after the International".
The population grew rapidly, mostly due to the Belarusian and Russian population arriving from the countryside. In 1939, the population of Rechitsa reached the mark of 30,000 people, of which 24% of the inhabitants (7237 people) were Jews. That year, the only eight-year school that taught in Yiddish was closed.
Second half of the 20th century
During the war, the city was occupied by German troops for more than two years (August 23, 1941 - November 18, 1943). Only highly skilled workers managed to evacuate together with the hardware plant. More than half of the Jewish population managed to leave. In the autumn of 1941, the Germans rounded up the remaining more than 3,000 Jews into the ghetto and then shot them outside the city. In total, about 5,000 citizens died during the war years.
In the post-war years, the evacuated population returned to the city, industry and agriculture began to recover. The hardware plant, the plant for tanning extracts came into operation again, a shipbuilding-ship repair and ceramics-pipe plant was built. By 1959 it was restoredpre-war population of Rechitsa, 30,600 people lived in the city. The increase was largely due to the annexation of nearby settlements (Babich, Vasilevich, Dubrova, Korovatichi).
Modern history
In subsequent years, the population of Rechitsa continued to grow rapidly in 1970, 48,390 people lived here. Significant labor resources were attracted from other regions of the country. Especially for the operation of the oil and gas industry, in 1964 the first Belarusian oil was produced, and two years later - the millionth ton of hydrocarbon raw materials. The share of the Jewish population consistently decreased, in 1970 3123 Jews (6.44%) lived in the city, and in 1979 - 2594 (4.3%). A significant part of the Jews left for Israel. In addition, the erosion of the percentage share is due to the fact that mainly Belarusians and Russians came to work at the enterprises.
The maximum population of Rechitsa, Gomel region, was reached in the last Soviet years, in 1989 - 69,430 inhabitants. In the post-Soviet period, the number of inhabitants gradually decreased, the region was affected by crisis phenomena, as in all former Soviet republics. Between 1989 and 2009, the number of inhabitants decreased by an average of 0.3-0.4% per year. Unlike other regions, the city easily survived the 90s, now the industry has started working again. A particularly large contribution to the economy is made by the structural divisions of Belorusneft and the Belarusian Gas Processing Plant. Since 2009, the population of Rechits has increased by 0.23% per year. In 2018there were about 65,940 residents in the city.
