An amazingly beautiful Belarusian city is located on the banks of the Dnieper. Over its eight-century history, he has experienced many different events. The most incredible thing is that Rechitsa is the center of the oil industry of Belarus.
general information
The city is located in the Gomel region of the Republic of Belarus, received its name from the Rechitsa River (Belor. Rechitsa), a tributary of the Dnieper. It is the administrative center of the homonymous district. Rechitsa occupies an advantageous geographical position: the Gomel-Brest railway and the Bobruisk-Loev republican highway pass nearby.
The first written mention of the city was found in the Novgorod Chronicle in 1213. Rechitsa was included in the Russian Empire in 1793.
Entry into the Russian Empire
One of the ancient cities of Belarus over its long history has been repeatedly captured and destroyed by foreign invaders, but each time the population of Rechitsa returned and rebuilt its city. However, reliable data on the number of inhabitants in that period has not been established.
It is known that at the beginning of the 19th century the population of Rechitsa amounted to 1.77 thousand, of which 83% belonged to the class of philistines. After the city was annexed to the Russian Empire (1793), in accordance with the decree of Empress Catherine II “The Line of Permanent Jewish Settlement”, Jews were allowed to live and work only in specially designated places. Rechitsa was a permitted city, so in 1800 two-thirds (1288 people) of the population were Jews.
Development in the 19th century
After joining Russia, a railroad was drawn into the city, and steamboat traffic along the Dnieper was established. The county economy began to develop quite dynamically, agriculture expanded, the first industrial enterprises appeared, including two sawmills. After the abolition of serfdom, new jobs began to occupy peasants from the central Russian provinces.
By the beginning of the 19th century, Jews remained a national majority, there was a synagogue and houses of worship, 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 amounted to 5,334 or 57.5% of the total number of inhabitants. The city has become one of the regional centers of Hasidism in the Russian Empire. By 1914, the proportion of Jews in the population 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 flooded with refugees. Industrial and agricultural production declined. After the difficult years of the revolution and civil war, the population of Rechitsa began to gradually recover. Industrialization began, many new industrial enterprises were opened and technical re-equipment at old plants was organized. During these years, a shipyard was built, match factories "Dnepr" and "10th October". The production at the nationalized Rikk brothers factory was expanded. which became known as the Rechitsa Wire-Nail Plant named after the International.
The population grew rapidly, mainly due to the Belarusian and Russian population arriving from the countryside. In 1939, the population of Rechitsa reached 30,000, of which 24% of the Jews (7,237) were Jews. This year the only eight-year school where teaching in Yiddish was conducted was closed.
The second half of the 20th century
During the war years, 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 managed to leave the Jewish population. In the fall of 1941, the Germans drove the remaining 3,000 Jews into the ghetto and then shot 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 tannin extracts plant came into operation again, and a shipbuilding-ship-repairing and ceramic-pipe plant was built. By 1959, the pre-war population of Rechitsa was restored, 30,600 people lived in the city. The increase was largely due to the accession 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 oil and gas industry, in 1964 the first Belarusian oil was produced, and two years later - a millionth ton of hydrocarbons. The proportion of the Jewish population was gradually decreasing, in 1970, 3123 Jews lived in the city (6.44%), 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 enterprises.
The maximum population of Rechitsa in the Gomel region was reached in recent Soviet years, in 1989 - 69,430 inhabitants. In post-Soviet times, the number of inhabitants gradually decreased, the region was affected by the crisis, as in all the former Soviet republics. Between 1989 and 2009, the number of residents decreased on average by 0.3-0.4% per year. Unlike other regions, the city easily survived the 90s, now industry has again started working. Structural divisions of Belorusneft and the Belarusian Gas Processing Plant make a particularly significant contribution to the economy. Since 2009, the population of Rechits has been increasing by 0.23% per year. In 2018, there were about 65,940 residents in the city.