Rechytsa

Rechytsa or Rechitsa (Belarusian: Рэчыца, romanized: Rechyca, IPA: [ˈrɛtʂɨtsa]; Russian: Речица; Polish: Rzeczyca) is a town in Gomel Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Rechytsa District. The town is located on the Rechytsa River, which flows into the Dnieper. In 2020, its population was 66,400. As of 2025, it has a population of 64,733.

Rechytsa is one of the oldest towns in Belarus. First settlements in this region are dated back to the epoch of mesolite (9 – 5th centuries B.C.). Later, this area was inhabited by the Dregovichi tribe. The town was first mentioned in the Novgorod chronicle in 1213 as a town of the Principality of Chernigov. Rechytsa was also ruled by Kiev and Turov Grand Dukes. At the time of Gediminas reign (1311–1341) the town was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, from 1385 forming part of the Polish–Lithuanian union. Rečyca as well as Orsha, Shklow, Mogilev, Stary Bychaw and Rahachow formed a well-developed frontier defense system at the River Dniepr.

1392–1430 – the reign of Grand Duke Vytautas. He constructed a fortified castle with five towers in the area of the detinets (old Belarusian for the downtown) on the bank of the Dniepr. At that time the town had three fortification lines in the form of water trenches and ramparts with bastions. In the area between the fortress and the second fortification line there was a territory for rich mansions, Church of the Order of Friars Preachers and a trade square. The town inhabitants settled lived between the second and third fortification lines. The construction of the town had clear right-angled forms.

In 1561 the town was partially granted Magdeburg rights by Sigismund II Augustus. Within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, it was a county seat in the Minsk Voivodeship. The town was practically destroyed during the Cossack war of 1648–1651. After the Truce of Andrusovo it was restored to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was annexed by Russia in the Second Partition of Poland in 1793. It then became an uyezd seat in the newly formed Minsk Governorate.

The first permanent town plan of Rechytsa was approved in 1800. During the Napoleonic Wars in 1812 the town was a temporary residence of the Minsk governor. The town was occupied by Napoleon's Army in some of 1812, fought over by Whites and Reds during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, occupied by Central Powers in 1917–1918, and temporarily controlled by Poland in 1920 during the Polish–Soviet War. From 1922 it formed part of the Soviet Union. It was under German occupation during World War II in 1941–1943/4. The Germans operated a Nazi prison in the town.

Rechytsa had one of the oldest Jewish communities in Belarus, and later the town was a center for Chabad Hasidic Jews. In 1648, Cossacks murdered many of its Jews. The town's Jewish population in 1766 numbered 133, increasing to 1,268 in 1800 (two-thirds of the total population), and 2,080 in 1847. By 1897 the town's Jewish population grew to 5,334, which constituted 57 percent of the general population. On the eve of World War I the Jewish population is thought to have numbered some 7,500.

Rabbi Shalom Dovber Schneersohn of Rechitsa (d. 1908) led the Kapust branch of the Chabad movement until his death in 1908.

During World War II, the Germans occupied the town on 23 August 1941 and in November all 3,000 remaining Jews were gathered in a ghetto. On 25 November the Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Following the war, a few Jews returned to Rechytsa. The town had no synagogue, and in 1970 the Jewish population was estimated at 1,000. In the 1990s most Jews of the town emigrated to Israel and the West.