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city in western Ukraine
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Rivne ( RIV-nə; Ukrainian: Рівне, IPA: [ˈr⁽ʲ⁾iu̯ne] ⓘ) is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the Rivne Raion (district) within the oblast. It has a population of 243,873 (2022 estimate).
First mentioned in the late 13th century, Rivne developed under the rule of Lithuania and Poland due to its location on the route connecting Kyiv and Volodymyr. In the late 15th century the city was awarded Magdeburg Law. From the late 16th century it belonged to Ostrogski and Lubomirski noble families. Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793, during the latter half of the 19th century Rivne experienced rapid development due to its role as a railway hub. In the spring of 1919 it served as a provisional seat of the Ukrainian government throughout the ongoing war with Soviet Russia. Between World War I and World War II, the city belonged to Poland as a district-level (county) seat of Wołyń Voivodeship. At the start of World War II in 1939, Rivne was occupied by the Soviet Red Army and received its current status by becoming a seat of regional government of the Rivne Oblast, which was created out of the eastern portion of the voivodeship. During the German occupation of 1941–44 the city was designated as the capital of Reichskommissariat Ukraine.
Rivne is an important transportation hub, with the international Rivne Airport, and rail links to Zdolbuniv, Sarny, and Kovel, as well as highways linking it with Brest, Kyiv and Lviv. Among other leading companies there is a chemical factory of Rivne-Azot (part of Ostchem Holding).
Rivne was first mentioned in 1283 in the Polish annals Rocznik kapituły krakowskiej as one of the inhabited places of Halych-Volhynia near which Leszek II the Black was victorious over a part of the Grand Ducal Lithuanian Army. Following the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia's partition after Galicia–Volhynia Wars in the late 14th century, it was under the rule of Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in 1434 the Grand Duke of Lithuania Švitrigaila awarded the settlement to a Lutsk nobleman Dychko. In 1461 Dychko sold his settlement to Prince Semen Nesvizh. In 1479 Semen Nesvizh died and his settlement was passed to his wife Maria who started to call herself princess of Rivne. She turned the settlement into a princely residence by building in 1481 a castle on one of local river islands and managed to obtain Magdeburg rights for the settlement in 1492 from the King of Poland Casimir IV Jagiellon. Following her death in 1518, the city was passed on to the princes of Ostrog and declined by losing its status as a princely residency.
In 1566 the town of Rivne became part of newly established Volhynian Voivodeship. Following the Union of Lublin in 1569, it was transferred from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the Kingdom of Poland. The city had a status of a private town held by nobles (Ostrogski and Lubomirski families). Following the Second Partition of Poland in 1795 Rivne became a part of the Russian Empire, and in 1797 it was declared to be a county level (uyezd) town of the Volhynian Governorate.
During World War I and the period of chaos shortly after, it was briefly under German, Ukrainian, Bolshevik, and Polish rule. During April–May 1919 Rivne served as the temporary capital of the Ukrainian People's Republic. In late April 1919 one of the Ukrainian military leaders Volodymyr Oskilko attempted to organize a coup-d'état against the Directorate led by Symon Petliura and the cabinet of Borys Martos and replace them with Yevhen Petrushevych as president of Ukraine. In Rivne, Oskilko managed to arrest most of the cabinet ministers including Martos himself, but Petliura at that time was in neighboring Zdolbuniv and managed to stop Oskilko's efforts. At the conclusion of the conflict, in accordance with the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, it became a part of the Polish Volhynian Voivodeship, a situation which would last until the Second World War. Before World War II, Rivne (Równe) was a mainly Jewish-Polish city (Jews constituted about 50% of the city's population, and Poles 35%).
In 1939, as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the partition of Poland, Rivne was occupied by the Soviet Union. Starting December of that year Rivne became the center of the newly established Rivne Oblast in the Ukrainian SSR. The Soviets operated a prisoner-of-war camp in the city, in which over 14,500 POWs were held as of July 1940. Over 30 Poles who were either born or lived and worked in Równe, including policemen, school teachers, commanders and doctors of the local military hospital, tax inspectors and corrections officers, as well as several Polish prisoners of war captured near Równe, several Poles who fought in the Battle of Równe in 1920, and many Polish POWs from the local POW camp were murdered by the Russians in the Katyn massacre in 1940.
On 28 June 1941 Rivne was invaded by the 6th Army of Nazi Germany. On 20 August, the Nazis declared it the administrative center of Reichskommissariat Ukraine. A Gestapo prison opened on Belaia Street.
On 6–8 November, 17,500 Jewish adults from Rivne were shot to death or thrown alive into a large pit in a pine grove in Sosenki, a nearby wooded area (sometimes referred to as Sosenki Forest), and 6,000 Jewish children suffered the same fate at a nearby site. From 8–13 November German actor Olaf Bach was flown to the city to perform for the German forces. The city's remaining Jews were sent to Rivne Ghetto. In July 1942, they were sent 70 km (43 mi) north to Kostopil and shot to death.
On 2 February 1944, the city was captured by the Red Army in the Battle of Rivne, and remained under Soviet control until Ukraine regained its independence on the break-up of the USSR in 1991. Poles from Rivne were deported to Poland's new borders after 1945.
In 1958, a TV tower began broadcasting in the city; in 1969, the first trolley ran through the city; in 1969, Rivne airport opened. In 1983, the city celebrated its 700th anniversary.
On 11 June 1991, the Ukrainian parliament officially renamed the city Rivne according to the rules of Ukrainian orthography. It had previously been known as Rovno.
On 14 March 2022, Rivne TV Tower experienced heavy missile attack by Russian troops. The tower was damaged and an administrative room was destroyed. As a result of the attack 20 people were killed and nine injured.
Distribution of the population by ethnicity according to the 2001 Ukrainian census:
Distribution of the population by native language according to the 2001 census:
According to a survey conducted by the International Republican Institute in April–May 2023, 96% of the city's population spoke Ukrainian at home, and 3% spoke Russian.
Rivne has a moderate continental climate with cold, snowy winters and warm summers. Snow cover usually lasts from November until March. The average annual precipitation is 598 mm (24 in) June and July being the wettest months and January and February the driest.
During Soviet times the provincial town was transformed into an industrial center of the republic. There were two significant factories built. The first was a machine building and metal processing factory capable of producing high-voltage apparatus, tractor spare parts and others. The other was a chemical factory and synthetic materials fabrication plant. Light industry, including a linen plant and a textile mill, as well as food industries, including milk and meat processing plants and a vegetable preservation plant, have also been built. In addition the city became a production center for furniture and other building materials.
As an important cultural center, Rivne hosts a humanities and a hydro-engineering university, as well as a faculty of the Kyiv State Institute of Culture, and medical and musical as well as automobile-construction, commercial, textile, agricultural and cooperative polytechnic colleges. The city has a historical museum.
Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the monument for the Soviet hero Dmitry Medvedev was removed, and the Nikolai Kuznetsov monument was moved to another location within the city. Instead, in order to reflect the controversial history of the region the monuments for "People who died in the honor of Ukraine", and "Soldiers who died in local military battles" were installed.
The following memorials are found in Rivne:
The Rivne Speedway Stadium hosts the speedway club Rivne Speedway.
The stadium opened on 24 May 1959. The venue has hosted significant speedway events including a qualifying round of the Speedway World Championship in 1962. and 1991.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Rivne”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.