Rahachow or Rogachev (, ; ; ; , ) is a town in Gomel Region,

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. It serves as the administrative center of Rahachow District. Rahachow is located between the Drut and

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

rivers. As of 2025, it has a population of 31,490.

History

The town is first mentioned in 1142 in Rus' chronicles. From the late thirteenth century it was part of the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

, and then the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, also referred to as Poland–Lithuania or the First Polish Republic (), was a federation, federative real union between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

. In 1772, the area was annexed by the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. On 16 July 1863 the local landowner Tomasz Hryniewicz was executed here by a Russian firing squad for leading the Rahachow detachment of Polish insurgents. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Rahachow was occupied by the

German Army The German Army (, 'army') is the land component of the armed forces of Federal Republic of Germany, Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German together with the German Navy, ''Marine'' (G ...

from 2 July 1941 to 13 July 1941, and again from 14 August 1941 to 24 February 1944. Rahachow also has a popular dairy product factory, whose products are supplied across Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Notable people

Joseph Rosen Joseph Rosen (, ''Yosef Rosin''; 1858 – 5 March 1936) known as the Rogatchover Gaon (Genius of Rogachev) and Tzofnath Paneach (Decipherer of Secrets—the title of his main work), was an Ashkenazi rabbi and one of the most prominent talmu ...

(1858–1936), rabbi * Anatoli Lvovich Kaplan (1902–1980), artist * Sergei Bautin (1967–2022), ice hockey player

Sights

* Church of St. Anthony of Padua * Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky * "Castle Hill" - a hill on which the castle of Queen Bona was located * Monument to the founding of the city in the center of the "Castle Hill" with the inscription "From here the city of Rogachev went in the summer of 1142." * Jewish Cemetery in Rahachow * The building of the former zemstvo council * House of merchant Belenky * Eco-Museum "Belarusian Lyalka" * Museum of Popular Glory * House of Uladzimir Karatkievich's grandfather * Monument to

condensed milk Condensed milk is Milk#Cow, cow's milk from which water has been removed (roughly 60% of it). It is most often found with sugar added, in the form of sweetened condensed milk, to the extent that the terms "condensed milk" and "sweetened condensed m ...

* Rahachow booms * Icon of the Mother of God with four hands * Three family tombs - Greshnerov, Iolshinov, Verzheisky * Memorial to the leader of the national liberation uprising of 1863 Tomas Grinevich

References

External links

Photos on Radzima.org
Radimichs Populated places on the Dnieper in Belarus {{Belarus-geo-stub