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Gomel (Russian: Гомель, IPA: [ˈɡomʲɪlʲ]) or Homyel (Belarusian: Гомель, romanized: Homieĺ, IPA: [ˈɣomʲelʲ]) is a city in south-eastern Belarus. It serves as the administrative centre of Gomel Region and Gomel District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it is the second-largest city in Belarus, with 501,193 inhabitants.
There are at least six narratives of the origin of the city's name. The most plausible is that the name is derived from the name of the stream Homeyuk, which flowed into the river Sozh near the foot of the hill where the first settlement was founded. Names of other Belarusian cities are formed along these lines: for example, Polotsk from the river Palata, and Vitebsk from the river Vitsba.
The first appearance of the name, as "Gomy", dates from 1142. Up to the 16th century, the city was mentioned as Hom', Homye, Homiy, Homey, or Homyi. These forms are tentatively explained as derivatives of unattested *gomŭ of uncertain meaning. The modern name for the city has been in use only since the 16th or 17th century.
Gomel was founded at the end of the 1st millennium AD on the lands of the Eastern Slavic tribal union of Radimichs. It lay on the banks of the Sozh River and the Homeyuk stream. Sozh's high right bank, with bluffs carving through, provided a natural fortification. For some time, Gomel was the capital of the Gomel Principality, before it became part of the Principality of Chernigov. Gomel is first mentioned in the Hypatian Codex under the year 1142 as a territory of the princes of Chernigov. For some time, Gomel was ruled by the prince of Smolensk Rostislav Mstislavich before it was re-captured by Iziaslav III Davidovich, after whose death it belonged to Sviatoslav Olgovich and then to Sviatoslav's son Oleg. Under Oleg, Gomel went to the Principality of Novgorod-Seversk. The next ruler was Igor Svyatoslavich—the protagonist of The Tale of Igor's Campaign. During this period, the town was a fortified point and the centre of a volost. In the 12th–13th centuries, the city's area was no less than 40 ha, and it had developed various crafts and was connected by trading routes with the cities of northern and southern Rus'. Archeological data have shown that the city was badly damaged during the Mongol-Tatar invasion in the first half of the 13th century.
In 1335, the Gomel region was annexed to the Great Duchy of Lithuania by Algirdas. From 1335 to 1406, it was under the ownership of Prince Patricia Narymuntovich and his sons, from 1406 to 1419 the city was ruled by the grand duke's deputies, from 1419 to 1435 it belonged to Prince Svitrigaila, from 1446 to 1452 to Prince Vasiliy Yaroslavich, from 1452 to 1483 to the Mozhaysk prince Ivan Andreyevich, and from 1483 to 1505 to his son Semyon, who transferred it to the Grand Principality of Moscow.
During the Second Muscovite–Lithuanian War of 1500–1503, Lithuania tried to regain Gomel and other lands transferred to Moscow, but had suffered defeat and lost one-third of its territory. In 1535, Lithuanian and Polish forces under Jerzy Radvila, Jan Tarnowski and Andrzej Niemirowicz re-captured the city after the surrender of Moscow's deputy, D. Shchepin-Obolensky. In the same year, the Great Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Kęstutaitis founded Gomel Starostwo. According to the peace agreement of 1537, Gomel together with its volost remained a Lithuanian possession. In 1535–1565, Gomel was the centre of the starostwo, and from 1565 onwards it was in Rechytsa Powiat of Minsk Voivodeship.
In 1560, the city's first coat of arms was introduced. In 1569, Gomel became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. From this moment on, the city became the arena of numerous attacks and battles between the Cossacks, Russia, and the Polish-Lithuania Commonwealth. In 1572, Gomel Starostwo was given to B. Sapega. At the beginning of the 1570s, Gomel was captured by the forces of Ivan the Terrible, but in 1576 it was re-captured by J. Radvila. In 1581, Gomel was again attacked by Russian troops, and in 1595–1596 it was in the hands of Severyn Nalyvaiko's Cossacks.
After the beginning of the struggle against Orthodox Christianity in Lithuania, Orthodox Nikolayevskiy Cathedral was closed, following the order of Greek Catholic Eparch Josaphat Kuntsevych in 1621. In 1633, the city was besieged by Cossacks Bulgakov and Yermolin, in 1648 captured by Golovatskiy's Cossack detachment, and in 1649 by Martyn Nebaba's detachment. After that, Gomel got through several sieges in 1651, but in 1654 was captured by Ivan Zolotarenko's detachment. He and his sons held the city until 1667 and then began to serve under Alexis of Russia, however, after the Truce of Andrusovo Gomel at last returned to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where it first belonged to M. K. Radvila and then—till the annexation by the Russian Empire—to the Czartoryski family. During the Great Northern War, Russian forces under Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov stood in Gomel. In 1670, Gomel received Magdeburg rights. Towards the middle of the 17th century, the city fell into crisis mainly due to the struggles mentioned above. It suffered significant damage, the population decreased severely, and many crafts disappeared.
Gomel became part of the Russian Empire after the first partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772 and was confiscated by the imperial treasury. In 1775, Empress Catherine II gave Gomel and Gomel eldership in the eternal hereditary possession of Russian military commander Pyotr Rumyantsev.
The period when Gomel was part of the Russian Empire was marked by rapid growth of the population, urban infrastructure, and industrial capacity, predominantly after the construction of railways in the late 19th century.
Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, designed by architect John Clark, was built in 1809–1819. Nikolay Rumyantsev opened the first gymnasium, inn, glass, tile, weaving and spinning factories, and distilleries. Under his patronage a church, a synagogue, a pharmacy, a poorhouse, and a permanent wooden bridge across the Sozh river were built.
After the death of Nikolay Rumyantsev, the city came into the possession of his brother Sergei Petrovich Rumyantsev. However, due to lack of money, Sergei indebted Gomel with the state treasury of the Russian Empire. Subsequently, after not being able to pay off the debt, the treasury sold the city. The Gomel Palace was acquired by Prince Ivan Paskevich, and the rest of the city by Nicholas I (1838). Paskevich had an English garden made around the palace, which is still in place today. In 1856, the estate passed on to his son Fyodor Ivanovich Paskevich.
In 1842, the Prince Józef Poniatowski Monument, one of the most iconic monuments of Warsaw, was relocated from Warsaw to Gomel, before it was restored to Poland in 1922.
In 1852, Gomel became the county town of the former Belitsa County (renamed to Gomel County). This was preceded by the construction of the St. Petersburg–Kiev highway and St. Petersburg–Sebastopol telegraph line, both of which passed through Gomel, and the opening of a beet sugar factory.
The construction of railways in the territory of Belarus in the late 19th century (Libau–Romny Railway in 1873 and the Polesia railway in 1888) made Gomel a major railway junction and "drew many businessmen to the town, causing the establishment of banks, firms and factories, which in turn changed the pastoral and provincial character of a bygone Gomel into a trading and mercantile one"
By 1913, Gomel had become a major industrial city with 104,500 inhabitants. Nearly 44% of its industrial output was metalworking, with large workshops servicing the rolling stock of the Libau–Romny Railway and the Polesia railway. Other significant industries were woodworking, match manufacturing, breweries, and churning.
Preceding the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, on 1 March 1918, the city was occupied (the Executive Committee of the Gomel Council of Workers' Deputies had left already on 21 February) by German forces. In March 1918, the city became part of Chernihiv Governorate of the Ukrainian State. After the overthrow of the Ukrainian State Gomel was administered by the Ukrainian People's Republic for 25 days.
On 14 January 1919, Gomel was occupied by the Red Army. In March 1919, the largest uprising against the Bolsheviks occurred in Gomel, known as the short-lived Strekopytov Revolt. Rebels seized strategic facilities and executed members of the Soviet leadership in the city. The uprising was crushed by Red Army units dispatched to Gomel.
In 1919, Gomel became the centre of Gomel Governorate in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. After the end of hostilities, the restoration of industry and transportation began. In the 1920s, a number of large businesses were created: shipyards, a factory named "Polespechat", a shoe factory named "Trud", a bakery, and the first phase of a municipal power plant. In 1926, the city was passed to the Byelorussian SSR.
By 1940, 264 industrial enterprises had been established.
During World War II, Gomel was under German occupation from the 19th of August 1941 until the 26th of November 1943. The occupiers operated a prison, the Dulag 220 and Dulag 121 transit camps for prisoners of war, and forced labour camps for prisoners of war and civilians, part of whom were Jews.
The city was taken by Rokossovsky's Belorussian Front during the Gomel–Rechitsa Offensive. Eighty percent of the city had been destroyed, and the population of Gomel had dropped dramatically. According to the data of the registry, it numbered less than 15,000 inhabitants, compared to 144,000 in 1940.
After the war, the restoration of Gomel began promptly. The majority of pre-revolutionary buildings had been lost. City streets were considerably expanded, and buildings in a Stalinist style were erected. By 1950, almost all of the pre-war enterprises had resumed their work.
As a result of the disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on 26 April 1986, Gomel suffered radioactive contamination. At the beginning of the 21st century, a research centre for radiation medicine and human ecology was built in Gomel to overcome and study the consequences of the catastrophe at Chernobyl.
The development of radiological dose values varies between individual villages in severely contaminated regions, depending on the surroundings and the economic orientation. In general, living is possible in these areas today, even in formerly closed-off zones, if appropriate dietary rules are observed.
On 27 July 1990, the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was drafted. Gomel became a city in the independent state of the Republic of Belarus the following year.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Gomel became an important base for Russian forces.
In 2013, the city's population numbered 515,325, indicating a positive population growth and hence a reversal of the demographic crisis that began in 1993.
After the annexation of Gomel by the Russian Empire and the creation of the Pale of Settlement, Gomel gradually became a centre of resettlement for the Jewish population of Russia. According to the 1897 census, 55% of the population of Gomel were Jews. In 1903, there was a violent pogrom against the Jewish population of the city. From that moment on, a gradual decrease of the number of Jews in the city began. 40,880 Jews lived in Gomel in 1939, when they comprised 29.4% of the total population. Most Jews had left the city in anticipation of German occupation, but still between 3,000 and 4,000 Gomel Jews fell victim to the Holocaust. The end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s saw mass emigration of Jews from Gomel, but at the same time restoration of Jewish institutions in the city by the remaining Jewish inhabitants.
Gomel is situated in the southeastern part of the country, on the right bank of the river Sozh, 302 km (188 mi) south-east of Minsk, 534 km (332 mi) east of Brest, 171 km (106 mi) south of Mogilev, 237 km (147 mi) west of Bryansk and 111 km (69 mi) north of Chernihiv.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Gomel”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.