Homel

Homel | Gomel
Гомель | Гомель
( Belarus. ) | ( Russian )
coat of arms flag
State :	Belarus
Woblasz :	Homel
Founded :	1142
Coordinates :	52 ° 27 ′  N , 30 ° 59 ′  E Coordinates: 52 ° 27 ′  N , 30 ° 59 ′  E
Height :	138  m
Area :	113  km²
Residents :	510,300 (2020)
Population density :	4,516 inhabitants per km²
Time zone :	Moscow time ( UTC + 3 )
Telephone code :	(+375) 232 (2)
Postal code :	246001-246050
License plate :	3
Mayor :	Alexander Belyev
Website :	www.gorod.gomel.by
Homel

Homel or Gomel ( Belarusian Гомель Homel , Russian Гомель Gomel ) is the second largest city in Belarus with over 530,000 inhabitants . It is the administrative seat of Homelskaya Woblasz and Homel Raion .

geography

Gomel is located in southeast Belarus 40 km north of the border with Ukraine and 50 km west of the border with Russia at an altitude of 138  m on the bank of the Sosh , a left tributary of the Dnieper . The city is located 300 km southeast of Belarus' capital Minsk , 534 km east of Brest , 213 km south of Mahiljou , 279 km west of Bryansk and 111 km north of Chernihiv . Gomel occupies a territory of 113 km².

Geographical affiliation

Gomel is located in the northern part of the Dnieper lowlands. According to the geographical division, the majority of the territory belonging to the city lies in the northeastern part of the historical region of Gomel Polesia , which is part of the Belarusian Polesia . In the northwest, part of the urban area lies in the Chechersk Plain, which belongs to the historical Front Polesia .

geology

Homel is located on the southwestern foothills of the Voronezh Central Mountains , a slightly raised tectonic structure that is part of the Russian Shield in the Eastern European Craton . The crystalline foundation lies at a depth of 450 to 550 meters below sea level, on this foundation there are layers of deposits with a height of 600 to 700 meters:

• a layer with deposits from the Paleozoic , 100 to 120 meters thick, consisting of loam, loamy sand, marl and dolomite from the middle Devonian
• a layer from the Mesozoic , 400 to 420 meters thick, with sand-loam formations from the Triassic , loam, sand and lime from the Jura as well as marl, chalk, sand and loam deposits from the Cretaceous
• a layer from the Cenozoic , 30 to 50 meters thick, with quartz sand deposits from the Paleogene and sand, clay and gravel from the Quaternary .

The territory in which Gomel is located was up to central Devonian land. In central Devon, the area was flooded, silted up and covered again by a shallow sea. There was volcanic activity in the Upper Devonian. The Quaternary brought an ice age with glaciers to all of today's Belarus , with the area of ​​today's Homel being affected by the Beresinsker and Dnepr glaciers . During the Pleistocene , the valley of the Sosh River was also formed. The meltwater from the glacier ice deposited the material that produced the vast, sandy and wooded plain of Polesia .

Natural resources and relief

In the area of ​​the city of Gomel there are large deposits of sweet water with hydrocarbonates (it is found in the Cretaceous and Cenozoic layers ) and mineralized water with sulphates, chlorides and sodium (from the layers of the Devonian and Triassic). The latter are extracted and used as medicinal water. In the southwestern corner of Gomel there are large deposits of sand near Osowzowsk.

The relief is by and large flat. It consists of a slightly undulating ground moraine landscape and hills along the right bank of the river Sosch, on the left bank is a low alluvial plain. The relief is slightly inclined from north to south. The highest point is 144  m above sea level on the northern border of Homel, the lowest is 115  m on the banks of the Sosch. The Novobelitsky Rajon , which lies on the left bank of the Sosh , is on average 10 to 15 meters lower than the northern and central areas. There are miles of beaches on the left bank of the Sosch.

history

Peter and Paul Cathedral

The city was first mentioned in writing in 1142. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the area of ​​the settlement, which had trade and craft relations with Russian cities, was only about 40 hectares. The settlement was severely damaged during the Mongol invasion . Since the middle of the 17th century, due to numerous destruction, the town began to decline, which was only reversed after the first partition of Poland in 1772, after the town came under the Russian Empire . An urban intra-structure developed, industry developed and the population increased rapidly. After the Pale of Settlement was established in 1791, Gomel became one of the centers of the Jewish population in Russia. At the end of the 18th century, the then Russian governor Pyotr Rumjanzew-Sadunaiski had a palace built in the city. In the 1830s, under the Russian commander Ivan Paskewitsch , numerous schools, factories and glass factories were established.

After the Russian Civil War , Homel became part of the BSSR within the Soviet Union . During the German-Soviet War , the city was occupied by the Wehrmacht from August 19, 1941, after the Kesselschlacht near Smolensk , until November 26, 1943 . During this time, the heavily damaged city's population was reduced to a third of its pre-war population. After the liberation by the Red Army, there was a POW camp 189 , Gomel , for German prisoners of war of the Second World War . Seriously ill people were cared for in POW Hospital 3903 , Retschyza .

Due to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986, Homel was radioactively contaminated , which led to economic and social problems in the city, as the measures to ensure the safety of the population required considerable human and material resources. As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Homel became part of the now independent Belarus.

population

The population on January 1, 2006 was 479,935 people, of whom about 259,000 were employed. The population grew by almost 5000 people compared to the previous census (1999), which was the first increase since 1993 and indicated that the population crisis was slowly emerging.

Of the working population, 191,019 people were employed in the primary sector and 69,441 people in industry.

Gomel's population consists of 76.7% Belarusians , 16.9 Russians and 5.1 Ukrainians . Women make up 55%, men 45% of the population.

According to the 1897 census, 20,385 Jews lived in Gomel, making up about 55% of the total population. In 1903 there was a pogrom in Homel . In 1926 37,475 Jews lived in Homel, about 44% of the population. Almost the entire Jewish population of the city was murdered by the National Socialists during World War II . In 1979 there were 26,416 people. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s there was a strong emigration of Jews from Gomel, so that their number fell to 4029 people by 1999.

The majority of the people in Homel are Orthodox . In 2006 there were 19 parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the city , two parishes of the Old Orthodox (one Old ritualist and one Old Orthodox ), a Roman Catholic parish and an Islamic parish, although there is no mosque. Protestants also live in Homel. The city is the center of an eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church and has a male and a female monastery.

sons and daughters of the town

→ Main article : List of personalities of the city of Gomel

Economy and Infrastructure

Homel grew strongly after the Second World War , after a lot of industry was settled here (especially in connection with Homel's function as a railway junction ). Homel Airport , which opened in 1968, is northeast of the city . The M5 , M8 and M10 highways run through Homel .

Significant companies are:

• Gomel Transneft
• Gomel radio plant
• Gomselmash , the second largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery in Belarus

Zentralstadion, the home of FK Homel

Sports

The football club FK Homel currently plays in the Wyschejschaja Liha , the top division of Belarus. The city is also home to the HK Homel ice hockey club.

Chernobyl pollution

Cesium-137 contamination in 1996 in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine in kilobecquerels per square meter

The Gomel region is one of the most heavily radioactively contaminated areas by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster .

Today it can be seen that in many areas the internal radiation exposure of the population has decreased significantly to values ​​that no longer pose a health risk. Legal resettlement seems possible even in restricted areas. "If some protective measures are taken into account, such as reducing game meat, pretreating mushrooms with brine and choosing the location of the forest areas according to contamination criteria, a limited consumption of forest food is possible." This must be countered by the assessment of a "non-health-endangering" increased exposure like her also occurs when foodstuffs or dusts contaminated by radiation are ingested, is scientifically controversial and for a number of diseases the radiation-related risk does not only increase above a threshold value, but continues to occur increasingly as stochastic radiation damage. The limit values ​​that have been in force so far are therefore considered to be too optimistic. Resettlement, combined with the assessment of an acceptably increased risk of illness and death, is therefore subject to political and social criteria and considerations of opportunity, as is the assessment of the use of nuclear energy.

Edmund Lengfelder built there a thyroid center and treats the still widespread thyroid cancer .

coat of arms

Description: In blue, a resting golden lynx with black tufts of ears.

Twin cities

Homel lists 28 twin cities :

city	country	since
Aberdeen	Scotland, United Kingdom	1990
Anapa	Russia	2010
Armavir	Russia	2009
Bryansk	Russia	2001
Ceske Budejovice	Czech Republic
Burgas	Bulgaria	1998
Cheryomushky District	Moscow, Russia	2007
Clermont-Ferrand	France	1977
Donetsk	Ukraine	2003
Gjandscha	Azerbaijan	2013
Harbin	People's Republic of China	2015
Huai'an	People's Republic of China	1997
Kaliningrad	Russia	2010
Krasnoselsky District	Saint Petersburg, Russia	2001
Kursk	Russia	2004
Liepāja	Latvia	1999
Magnitogorsk	Russia	2015
Novi Sad	Serbia	2013
Omsk	Russia	2013
Protvino	Russia	1998
Radome	Poland	1992
Rostov on Don	Russia	2009
Samara	Russia	2000
Solomyanka district, Kiev	Ukraine	2009
Surgut	Russia	2005
Chernihiv	Ukraine	2001
Ulyanovsk	Russia	2012
Vasileostrovsky district	Saint Petersburg, Russia	2002
Voronezh	Russia	2013

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  Rumjanzew- Paschkewitsch -Palast

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  Rumyantsev Pashkevich Palace

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  View from the bridge of the Rumyantsev Pashkevich Palace

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  Facade lighting on a main street

Web links

Commons : Homel  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Population as of January 1, 2020
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Гомель. Энециклопедический справочник. - Мн .: БелСэ, 1991, 527 с.
3. ↑ Gomel: the early stages of education on nashkraj.info ; Retrieved March 28, 2020 (Russian).
4. ↑ Homel on vetliva.ru ; Retrieved March 28, 2020 (Russian).
5. ↑ Dieter Pohl : The Rule of the Wehrmacht: German Military Occupation and Local Population in the Soviet Union 1941-1944 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-486-70739-7 , p. 123 ( books.google.de ).
6. ↑ Maschke, Erich (ed.): On the history of the German prisoners of war of the Second World War. Verlag Ernst and Werner Gieseking, Bielefeld 1962–1977.
7. ^ City history on the official website of the city of Homel; accessed on March 28, 2020 (English).
8. ↑ gomel-prazdnik.com ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Гомель // Электронная еврейская энциклопедия .
10. ↑ mygomel2007.narod.ru/cifri.htm .
11. ^ Herbert Dederichs, Jürgen Pillath, Burkhard Heuel-Fabianek, Peter Hill, Reinhard Lennartz: Long-term observation of the dose exposure of the population in radioactively contaminated areas of Belarus - Korma study. (PDF; 5.71 MB) Forschungszentrum Jülich , 2009, ISBN 978-3-89336-562-3 , p. 33; last accessed on January 5, 2016.
12. ↑ Petro Zoriy, Herbert Dederichs, Jürgen Pillath, Burkhard Heuel-Fabianek, Peter Hill, Reinhard Lennartz: Long-Term Measurements of the Radiation Exposure of the Inhabitants of Radioactively Contaminated Regions of Belarus - The Korma Report II (1998-2015) . (PDF; 10.6 MB) Forschungszentrum Jülich , 2016, ISBN 978-3-95806-181-1 ; accessed on January 4, 2017.
13. ↑ Ben D. Spycher, Judith E. Lupatsch, Marcel Zwahlen, et al .: Background Ionizing Radiation and the Risk of Childhood Cancer: A Census-Based Nationwide Cohort Study Archived from the original on May 2, 2017. Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 426 kB) In: Environmental health perspectives . 123, No. 2, February 2015. doi : 10.1289 / ehp.1408548 . Retrieved March 19, 2018.  Retrieved March 19, 2018.
14. ↑ cf. on this, Federal Office for Radiation Protection for risk assessment in the event of radiation exposure , accessed on March 19, 2018
15. ↑ Partner cities ǀ Gomel city executive committee. Retrieved April 5, 2020 . 
16. ↑ Города-партнеры. Retrieved June 15, 2016 .