Rezekne. The heart of Latgale. Holidays in Rezekne Beautiful places in the vicinity of Rezekne

If you travel from Moscow to Riga by train, the first stop after the border is Rezekne, a very serious city by Latvian standards (35 thousand inhabitants). With , poor and wild, it presents a noticeable contrast, and in the scale of its new buildings throughout the country it is second only to Riga and Ventspils. It is Rezekne, and not Daugavpils, that in modern Latvia is considered the capital of Latgale - and in general, not without reason.

A month and a half passed between my departure from and arrival in Rezekne, which I spent in Moscow, posting the Lithuanian series. The second time I crossed the Latvian border was by train, without stopping, passing through the town of Ludza (county Lucin) - perhaps even more interesting than Rezekne and Kraslava, but considered perhaps the most depressing in the country. Rezekne has two stations at opposite ends of the city: in the south Rezekne-1 Petersburg-Warsaw railway(1862), in the north of Rezekne-2 Moscow-Vindavskaya (1900). Both were destroyed by the war and in their current form are almost typical Stalinist buildings. On a gloomy warm morning I got off at Rezekne-2:

2.

And I wandered to the center, which is about 2 kilometers from here - firstly, I didn’t have a centime in my pocket, and secondly, after a sleepless night on the train and the inevitable carriage conversations about “I was in Soviet times, oooooh!” I just wanted to find ground under my feet.

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Like most Latvian cities, Rezekne began with an order castle - founded in 1285, it was called Rositten, and in Slavic transcription Rezhitsa or Zhezhitsa, but the German name was official until 1893. However, unlike Kraslava, in the composition Russian Empire Since 1773, Rezhitsa was not a town, but a county town - in fact, the whole of Latgale consisted of three counties of the Vitebsk province - Dinaburg, Rezhitsa and Lucinsk. Like Dinaburg, Rezhitsa began to grow as a crossroads of railways that diverged from here literally at 4 largest cities empire - St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw and Riga. For the same reason, Rezekne was heavily damaged by the war and its buildings are generally quite dull. The first even slightly remarkable house is a 10-minute walk from the station, most likely from the time of the First Republic:

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But in general, the following landscapes predominate in Rezekne - typically post-war:

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The house in the background, by the way, is occupied by the Latgale Cultural and Historical Museum (1959), as the design of the doors reminds us of. They say there is the largest collection of Latgalian folk ceramics, but in the morning the museum was closed:

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Nearby, without a signature, is a monument to Anton Kukois (1946-2007) - a Latgalian poet, playwright, director, actor and public figure (this has already been explained to me in the comments).

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This is already the main street of Atbrivoshanas (Liberation). Opposite the museum is again a typically post-war cultural center, now NK:

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And ahead is the main Unity Square of a characteristic oval shape, with south side marked by the small Church of the Passion of the Virgin Mary (1938). The age and small size, more typical of Courland or Vidzeme, should not be surprising - at the time of its construction it was a suburb.

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However, the new city center began to take shape even then: on the square there is main monument Rezekne - Latgale Mara (1939). The inscription on the pedestal is “United for Latvia”, implying reunification. Unlike Riga's Milda, Mara was unlucky - the original was demolished under the Soviets, and this is just a relic from the 1990s.

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Also on the square there is a multi-storey Soviet hotel "Latgale" and a small Nativity Church (1846) with a wooden dome, most similar to the temple of a destroyed cemetery. Logically, in the center of Rezhitsa there should have been a large orthodox cathedral, which also did not survive the Soviet era... however, it really was the only Orthodox Church district Rezhitsy, that is, apparently the majority of the local Russians (25% of the population) were from the Old Believers.

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A little to the side, behind the market...

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The triptych of churches is completed by the Trinity Church (1939) - and its age really indicates that we are still in Latgale.

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Beyond the square, the street slopes sharply into the valley of the Rezhitsa River. The most impressive county buildings of the city are in the tradition of the “Latgalian Baroque”: in general, a unique style, 9/10 examples of which are stylizations of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, and the originals of the 18th century are limited to a couple of churches of the type. Next to the houses is a monument to Yuri Tynyanov, who was born in Rezhitsa into the family of a Jewish doctor.

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Castle Street goes to the left to the ruins of the castle, and to the right is a park in a bend, marked with things like this with a map of the city:

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And the newly built East Latgale Cultural Center is amazing in size for a small town. Honestly, I can’t imagine this in a city of 30 thousand people in Russia, unless of course it’s Khanty-Mansiysk... however, this is not a trivial case for Latvia either. But as already mentioned, it was decided to make Rezekne in present-day Latvia the “cultural capital of Latgale” - if only because here the largest number of people (11 thousand, that is, a third of the population) are ethnic Latgalians (although 46% of the population here are Russians - more only in Daugavpils and Riga). That is, this building should become the center cultural life of a whole people:

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Behind the park is the city House of Culture (interesting - pre- or post-war?), the square in front of which is just being put in order:

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Houses near the park. Apparently, before the war it was a beautiful town:

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And beyond the river, Osvobozhdeniye Street leads to the Rezekne Hotel (aka Column) from the 1930s:

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She is from the facade... however, we will return here at the end of the post:

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In the meantime, let's head to Rositten Castle, or rather, what little is left of it:

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Behind detailed history I refer the castle to Renata Rimsa. In short, the castle was the residence of the Vogt (roughly speaking, “district”), and it was subordinate to the commander not in Dinaburg (Daugavpils), but in Sigevald (Sigulda) - that is, Southern and Northern Latgale were different even then. Potential enemies surrounded the castle literally from all sides: in the west the Archbishopric of Riga, in the east the Bishopric of Dorpat (and the Order regularly fought with them), in the south Lithuania, in the east the Russian principalities and republics, so the castle was one of the most powerful, and hence not Preventive attacks were carried out several times - for example, in 1375 on Polotsk. In appearance, this is a “first generation” castle - both in Prussia and Livonia they began to build from brick only in the 14th century, and initially from wild stone. Behind the fence in the frame above is a small model of it (many Latvian castles are marked like this, including Old Dinaburg):

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However, Rositten took a severe blow in the Livonian War (1558) and never recovered. Moreover, Rezitsa, unlike Kraslava, did not have influential owners, so the fortress was never replaced by a manor. In subsequent centuries, the castles were torn down to stone, and now only small pieces of it remain on a steep hill with flat top. The barn below is probably made of the same stones:

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The most noticeable fragment is the gate arch. The wall that separated the convention from the forburg is clearly visible. In neighboring Ludza, the castle is much better preserved, and in principle, from the descriptions it seems more interesting.

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Here I was more impressed than the ruins themselves by the new building of the Center for Creativity and Services "Karandash" erected next to them. I don’t know why such a name, but among the services I noticed a cafe, most likely with a national bias:

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In the background you can see the Latgale Hotel on Liberation Square, while the Pencil is one of the most interesting new buildings I have ever seen. In general, modern architecture in Latvia is much weaker than in Lithuania - but here, it must be admitted, the Latvians have surpassed the Lithuanians, and in their field - a fusion of high-tech with ethnography:

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I especially liked the earthen roof:

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A second bridge leads from the castle across the river, marked with a “flood scale” below (not included in the frame, of course):

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And behind the bridge you find yourself in the very heart of the district Rezhitsa, in an area that clearly formed before the Moscow-Vindavo railway crossed the Warsaw-Petersburg railway. Red brick buildings typical of the Vitebsk region with a clear stamp of the Jewish past:

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The main Latgale street is parallel to the river and starts right at the Rezekne hotel. It first received its current name in the interwar period, and was previously called Bolshaya Lyutsinskaya. The cinema on the right seems to be Soviet.

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The Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1897-1902) is one of the largest in Latvia:

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Nearby, on Kraslavskaya Street (visible from Latgalskaya) a boarded up synagogue (1909) has been preserved - one of the fragments, all the really bright monuments of which burned down during the war. Jews made up 62% of the population in Rezhitsa - one of the highest figures in the empire.

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I really regret that I read the book “Old Belief of Latgale” (bought in Daugavpils) after the second trip, and not before - otherwise I would have known about the Rezhitsa Old Believer cemetery, which was almost the center of Latgale Old Belief. There is one of the most beautiful and oldest (1860s) prayer houses in this region, the richest and most characteristic tombstones (including golbtsy and “domovina” - grave sarcophagi with gable roofs), before the war there was an icon-painting workshop that supplied the whole of Latgale with canonical icons , there is a museum of the Old Believers... This is perhaps the most interesting attraction of the city. And I missed it!

37. photo by A. Eglitis, from the official website of the city of Rezekne.

Along Latgale we return to the hotel "Rezekne":

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On the square in front of the gray department store building (Soviet?) there is a small pre-war-looking autoport. I was delighted: from the countries. scraps of which went to the USSR in the 1940s, bus stations were built only by Finland, they are not even in Prussia (although maybe there were in “mainland” Germany?), it seems like there are still a couple of them in Lithuania... But alas, in Latvia This is not a pre-war era - it’s just that the architectural tradition of the First Republic lived here back in the 1940-50s, parallel to the Stalinist era:

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In today's Latvia, autoports are almost always combined with train stations. In Rezekne it formally operates - but the building is locked, the drivers have tickets. Having learned that the nearest bus to Jekabpils was still 3 hours away, and I had seen almost everything in the city (except for the prayer house, which, as already mentioned, I stupidly didn’t know about!), I exchanged euros for lats on the ground floor of the department store, had breakfast with what I bought there pies, and decided to hitchhike, why first by intercity bus I went out onto the highway (it’s about five kilometers on foot).

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Finally - the military memorial between the bus station and the Rezekne hotel. There is also the Rezekne 1 train station nearby, but visually it is a typical post-war Stalinist building, so I neglected going to it:

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Another house in the Latgalian Baroque style. The sky, as you can see, is clearing up:

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In the next part - about the town of Varaklyany, where I ended up completely unplanned.

Useful information for tourists about Rezekne in Latvia - geographical position, tourism infrastructure, map, architectural features and attractions.

Rezekne is the seventh largest city in Latvia, located in a picturesque ancient valley on the banks of the Rezekne River in the eastern part of the country. The city is located between the two highest Latvian mountains (Makonkalns and Lielais Liepukalns) and the country's two largest lakes (Rāzna and Lubanas), which are connected by the winding Rezekne River.

According to historians, the hilly area in the river valley was inhabited in the distant past. The city was first mentioned in chronicles in 1285 as Rositten. Since 1582, the city was part of the Principality of Poland-Lithuania, and in 1772 it became part of the Russian Empire. A strong impetus for the development of the city was the construction of railways in the 19th century passing through Rezekne.

Second World War, of course, did not bypass the city. Most of the buildings were destroyed, so in the post-war years Rezekne had to be restored almost from scratch, although some historical buildings have still survived to this day. Gradually the city became an industrial center. Factories and roads were built. Rezekne turned into a railway and road transport hub, a kind of gateway between East and West.

Today Rezekne is the cultural and educational center of Latgale (eastern Latvia). This is a multinational and multilingual city where representatives of different nationalities coexist peacefully.

Rezekne Castle Hill is one of the main attractions of the city. It offers a wonderful view of the city center and the old shopping area of ​​Rezekne. Since 1712, official permission has appeared allowing residents of nearby houses to use stones from the castle walls for their own construction needs. In 2003, not far from Castle Hill, a model of Rezekne Castle was installed, made by a teacher of the 14th Rezekne Crafts high school Edmund Smans. However, a copy of the castle can be seen only during the tourist season (April - October); the rest of the time, the model of the castle is covered from the weather with wooden shields.

The first church on the site of the Cathedral of the Heart of Jesus was built in 1685. Two centuries later, in 1887, the church burned down from a lightning strike. A year after the incident, construction began on a new stone cathedral. Finishing work continued until 1902; in 1904 the cathedral was consecrated. Today, the Cathedral of the Heart of Jesus is considered one of the largest and most beautiful churches in Latvia. When visiting the cathedral, you should definitely pay attention to the carved altars made of wood.

The building that houses the Latgale Cultural and Historical Museum was built in the second half of the 19th century. From 1884 to 1932 it housed a hospital and later a Russian primary school. Since 1938, a museum began its work in part of the building, which until 1990 was called the Rezekne Local History Museum. During the Second World War, the museum was not open, and the building housed the headquarters. Some of the exhibits were hidden in the basements of the City Duma. And some are in private warehouses. The museum began its work again in 1960. In 1990 it was reorganized into the Latgale Cultural and Historical Museum. In the museum you can get acquainted with both permanent exhibitions (“Latgale Ceramics” and “Rezekne through the Ages”), as well as various temporary exhibitions.

In 1886, the first Lutheran church was erected in Rezekne, which was a small one-story building made of wood. In the 30s of the 20th century, when the existing building completely fell into disrepair, it was demolished and a new temple began to be built. The new church opened its doors in 1938. The building was made of red brick in a pseudo-Gothic style. Beginning in 1949, the temple was closed by order of the authorities. For many years, the church housed film distribution. Today, the church hosts services and delightful concerts of sacred music. On such days its doors are open to everyone.

“Prince Gerden bows to all those who have seen this document, these people who live now, and those who come later will know how we created the world. Between the mesters and the Riga warriors, and from Polochana and Vidblyan, as the letter is written, they must retreat with all the land, because there is Lotygol land, how not to step into that land, because Prince Kostyantin gave mester with his brother, with his letter and seal, why not look for that land anymore. .... And where will someone be to blame for whom, in the city where that person will live, where he will not seek justice, whose parish )l(o)v(e)k to apologize, it’s true for him, or it’s his fault. And the old world stands prince(s) of Gerdenya, prince(s) of you, who will follow it. Because they slandered at the Massacre and what they say is the Lotygol land, from that they retreated with all the truth, Mester, as well as his brother(s), retreated, what the word is, the Poloch land, with all the truth.

This is a lengthy excerpt from the agreement of 1263 between the master of the Livonian Order and Riga on the one hand and Polotsk and Vitebsk on the other. According to him, the Nalshan prince Gerden confirmed as an intermediary the transfer by the Polotsk and Vitebsk princes Konstantin (Kostyantin) of his Latgalian possessions (Lotygol land) to the Livonian Order in exchange for security guarantees for Polotsk and Vitebsk merchants to trade in Riga and on the “Gothic coast”. The massacre mentioned in the text of the charter is the future Latvian city of Rezekne, the largest locality eastern Latvia, not counting Daugavpils. Almost immediately after receiving the land of Lotygol, the Livonians erected their border castle in that same Rezne, on the site of an ancient Latgalian settlement, which they called Rositten. At the castle there was a small settlement, in the 1560s, like the entire Latgalian part of Livonia, which became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and existed for the next 200-odd years as the town of Rzeżyca, which continued to be dominated by Castle Hill with the remains of the old order fortress. Only in 1773, after the First Section of the Republic of Poland, when Latgale became part of the Russian Empire, Žežica received the status of a city and the old German name Rositten. The newly-minted city was quickly made a district center, first in the Pskov, and eventually in the Vitebsk province. However, it was only formally a city. According to data from 1808:

“There is only one street in it; there is not a single artisan, no fairs, no supplies of life; there are 754 inhabitants there, of which 536 are Jews...”

Everything began to change when Rositten began to develop into a transport hub. First, the St. Petersburg-Warsaw highway passed through the town, and in 1861 the railway of the same name passed through. The result was not long in coming: in the 1880s, more than 10,000 people already lived in Rositten. In 1893, the old German name was abandoned (as in the case of Dinaburg-Dvinsk), Rositten became Rezhitsa. To top off the city's successes, in 1900 a second railway, the Moskovsko-Vindavskaya, passed through the city, another station, another train station appeared in Rezhitsa, and by 1911 more than 20,000 people already lived here. Now the population of Rezekne is about 34,000 (in 1999 it was 40,000), and its depopulation continues.

Rezekne became the last foreign county town of the Vitebsk province that I examined (see earlier in the Smolensk region, and in the Pskov region, and in Latgale), and the penultimate county town of this province in principle. Of the pre-revolutionary “district centers” of the Vitebsk region, I only have to visit Gorodok.

1. Modern entrance sign to the city. Judging by it, Rezekne even has some kind of signature style.

2. The city is divided into two parts by the river of the same name, its width is not amazing. In the distance you can see the main Catholic church of Rezekne, which we will approach later.

3. The first series about Rezekne will be about its right bank, where the main part of the district Rezitsa is located, but it would be more correct to start with the castle, which, as it happens, is located on the left bank of the river, on a 15-meter hill in its bend.

4. Rositten Castle on the site of an ancient Latgalian fortification was built by the master of the Livonian Order, Wilhelm von Schauerburg, in 1285 and belongs to the first wave of order fortifications, erected from moraine boulders. The second wave, using bricks, was built already in the 14th century, and Ludzen Castle in Ludza also belongs to it. Rositten survived much worse than Ludzen.

5. At the top of Castle Hill. Rositten was the residence of the Vogt of the Livonian Order, who was subordinate to the commander stationed in Segewald (Sigulda).

6. The largest surviving fragment of Rositten is the torturm, a tower gate located in the south-eastern corner of the castle. They form an excellent composition with the much later Catholic cathedral.

7. Old postcards from the beginning of the 20th century show that there were more large ruins then. Over the past century, Rositten has been even more ruined.

8. Remains of castle walls and some kind of outbuilding made of rubble stone below.

9. Despite some depression in Rezekne, large-scale construction was observed throughout the city. One of them was carried out right at the foot of Castle Hill, where the Center for Creative Services of Eastern Latvia, a good example of modern Baltic architecture, was still being built in May.

10. During the time that has passed since my trip, the center has already been opened (in September) and called Zeimuļs, which for some reason means “pencil” in Latgalian.

11. Construction cost 6.5 million lats (about 12 million dollars), 85% of which was allocated by the European Union.

12. Stylish tourist information center, Rositten Castle and Catholic cathedral: three generations of Rezekne architecture.

13. Now let's examine the center county town. Bridge over the river, white building on the right - Kolonna Hotel Rezekne.

14. The hotel, meanwhile, is one of the largest examples of architecture of the First Latvian Republic in the city, built in 1939.

15. If you turn left at it, you will get to the main street of the district Rezhitsa, right - to railway station Petersburg-Warsaw Railway. Let's go there first.

16. Along the way, you can enjoy the head of a stern Latvian man, who upon his return turned out to be a revolutionary Jona Zvidra, unknown to me. In Lithuania, he would have been taken to Grutas Park near Druskininkai long ago, but here it’s okay, it’s worth it.

17. Despite the fact that the street leads to the main railway station of the city, which was built near its center, for some reason there was practically no representative pre-revolutionary station. Here is a rare brickstyle two-story building.

18. And there was also a historical fire station made of rubble stone.

19. Picturesque building.

20. In Rezekne now, as before the revolution, there are 2 railway stations located at opposite ends of the city, Rezekne-I and Rezekne-II. Rezekne I station turned out to be a typical post-war building.

21. Unfortunately, the monumental pre-revolutionary palace was lost.

22. We return to the Colonna Hotel.

23. The main street of the county Rezhitsa, which has preserved the main area of ​​pre-revolutionary buildings, is Latgalskaya (Latgales), the former Bolshaya Lyutsinskaya.

24. At its beginning there is a war memorial - a monument to the liberators of Rezekne (1976).

25. Perspective of Latgales street.

26. Postcard from the interwar period. Then the street bore the same name, although it was called an avenue. Signs on houses are bilingual.

27. View in the opposite direction, everything, as you can see, has been dug up. An interwar hotel can be seen in the distance.

28. Selected examples of county development.

31. Interesting corner building with a pharmacy.

32. The corner tower has lost its spire, but the pharmacy here turned out to be historical! True, it certainly does not belong to G.A. Grunberg.

33. Department store from the turn of the 1950s-60s.

34. We are approaching the church, the final point of the route through this part of the city.

35. Suddenly, a typical cinema of one of my favorite projects with an oval canopy.

36. I don’t know the name (I think it was called “Rezekne”), now it’s the House of Culture.

37. Finally, the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, built in 1887-1902. designed by Riga architect Florian Viganovsky.

39. The church is the cathedral of the Rezekne-Aglona Catholic diocese.

41. The diocesan curia was located next door.

42. Behind the church urban development ends, giving way to the private sector. From here I began to walk back through peripheral streets to the castle ruins.

43. And he was right, traditionally, after church, he found a synagogue. If in Ludza Historical building 1800 was covered with brick, then in Rezekne the synagogue remained wooden, which automatically makes it stand out among general series buildings of their genre.

In the second episode, we will examine the left bank part of the city and go to the Moscow-Vindavo railway station.

Geographical encyclopedia

- (Rēzekne) (until 1893 Rositten, until 1917 Rezhitsa), a city (from 1773) in Latvia, on the river. Rezekne. Railway junction. 42 thousand inhabitants (1995). Mechanical engineering and metalworking, food industry; flax mill and other enterprises. Museum of Local Lore... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Rezekne- city, district center, Latvia. Since the Middle Ages, the Germanized form of the name Rositten has been used in Russia. In 1893, the city was officially renamed Rezhitsa; since 1918, the national name has been used in Latvia. Rezekne form. The city is named for its location on the river. Rezekne,... ... Toponymic dictionary

- (until 1920 Rezitsa) a city of republican subordination, the center of the Rezekne region of the Latvian SSR. Located on the river. Rezekne (flows into Lake Lubanas). Knot w. lines Riga Moscow and Leningrad Warsaw. 34 thousand inhabitants (1974). Milky... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Rezekne- the name of the middle family of a place in Latvia... Spelling dictionary of Ukrainian language

Rezekne: Rezekne is a city in Latvia. Rezekne River, a tributary of Lake Luban. Railway stations: Rezekne I Rezekne II Rezekne (football club) Rezekne (mini football club) ... Wikipedia

- (until 1893 Rositten until 1917 Rezhitsa), a city (from 1773) in Latvia, on the river. Rezekne. Railway junction. 42.5 thousand inhabitants (1989). Mechanical engineering and metalworking, food industry; flax mill and other enterprises. Museum of Local Lore. Known since... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

This term has other meanings, see Rezekne (meanings). FC Rezekne ... Wikipedia

Coat of arms of Rezekne ... Wikipedia

This article is about football club. For information about the sports school, see Youth and Youth Sports School Rezekne. Children's and Youth Sports School Rezekne Complete ... Wikipedia

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