Rakvere

This article covers the town of Rakvere ( Rakvere linn ). For the rural municipality of Rakvere ( Rakvere vald ) see Rakvere (rural municipality) .

Rakvere
coat of arms flag
State :	Estonia
Circle :	Lääne-Viru
Coordinates :	59 ° 22 ′  N , 26 ° 20 ′  E Coordinates: 59 ° 22 ′  N , 26 ° 20 ′  E
Height :	82  m
Area :	10.64  km²
Residents :	15,413 (January 1, 2018)
Population density :	1,449 inhabitants per km²
Time zone :	EET (UTC + 2)
Telephone code :	(+372) 032
Postal code :	44306
License plate :	R.
Community type:	city
Mayor :	Mihkel Juhkami ( IRL )
Postal address :	Tallinna 5 44306 Rakvere
Website :	www.rakvere.ee

Rakvere (German Wesenberg ) is a town in northern Estonia , at the foot of an old castle of the Teutonic Order , which bears the name Wesenberg.

history

View of Wesenberg Castle from 1782

View over the city

Wesenberg Ordensburg

Rakvere was first mentioned in a document in 1250 as a mountain. In 1268, the Battle of Wesenberg occurred near the city , in which the German-Danish army was defeated by the Russians . Wesenberg received Lübisches town charter in 1302 . In 1346 the castle came into the possession of the Teutonic Order, to whom Denmark had sold all of its property in Livonia .

During the Livonian War , the city was badly damaged and came under Russian rule. The Swedes also besieged the city shortly before the formation of the Lithuanian-Polish double empire in 1602 ; the Poles destroyed the castle in 1605. During the Great Northern War , Wesenberg was burned to the ground by Russian troops in 1704 after another battle . In the Peace of Nystad , which ended this war, the city was annexed to the Russian Empire, to which it belonged until the establishment of the sovereign Republic of Estonia in 1918.

Population development

year	1934	1959	1970	1979	1989	2004	2008	2011	2017	2018
Residents	10,027	14,296	17,891	19,011	19,822	16,851	16,988	15,264	15,526	15,413

Education and culture

The theater in Rakvere

Colleges and schools

Rakvere is one of six locations of the private Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences . The Rakvere Gümnaasium was founded in 1912.

theatre

In Soviet times, Rakvere was considered the smallest town with its own professional theater ( Rakvere Theater ). In the 1970s and 1980s it experienced its heyday, since 1996 an artistic resurgence as a repertoire theater. In summer there is an open-air theater in the Wesenberg castle ruins.

Attractions

The parish church of the city of Rakvere

Erratic boulders in Lahemaa National Park

Buildings

• Wesenberg Ordensburg
• City parish church from the 14th century
• Paulus-Freiheitskirche from 1940 (unfinished, today used as a gym)
• Tarvas statue - sculpture of an aurochs
• Marketplace

• 

  The Paulus Freedom Church

• 

  The aurochs from Rakvere

• 

  Marketplace

Parks

There is a cemetery that commemorates 1,456 German war dead who died in the hospital of Rakvere during the occupation of the Baltic States from 1941 to 1944 .

Natural monuments

The Lahemaa National Park (34,647 hectares) connects to the city to the northwest .

Economy and Infrastructure

railway station

Street in Rakvere with the parish church

traffic

There is good road connection to National Road 1 to Tallinn and Saint Petersburg .

Established businesses

Worth mentioning is the former meat combine, today a modern meat processing company, which can fall back on the rich meat offer from the rural area. Milk production and the timber industry are also widespread in the surrounding area. There are several wood processing companies in the city. The nearby area-consuming phosphate mines for the production of fertilizers are being cut back because they pollute the environment.

media

On November 1, 1880, the first edition of the "Wesenberger Anzeiger" was printed in Rakvere, which was a newspaper for the Germans who made up almost a third of the population.

Town twinning

Sister cities of Rakvere are:

Lappeenranta , Finland (1994) Lapua , Finland (1995) Senaki , Georgia (1996) Lütjenburg , Germany (1999) Sigtuna , Sweden

Panevėžys , Lithuania Cēsis , Latvia Szolnok , Hungary Vishgorod , Ukraine

sons and daughters of the town

• Jacob Johann Sievers (1731–1808), Russian (German-Baltic) statesman and reformer
• Paul von Kügelgen (1843–1904), Baltic German journalist
• Oscar von Gebhardt (1844–1906), German theologian and librarian
• Heinrich Paal (1895–1941), football player
• Lauri Vaska (1925–2015), Estonian-American chemist
• Aino Pervik (* 1932), writer
• Erik Tohvri (1933-2020), writer
• Tõnis Lehtmets (* 1937), writer
• Alar Toomre (* 1937), American astronomer and mathematician from Estonia
• Jaan Kiivit junior (1940–2005), Protestant theologian and Archbishop of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church
• Ene Ergma (* 1944), politician and astrophysicist
• Toomas Varek (* 1948), politician
• Sven Kivisildnik (* 1964), writer and publicist
• Hannes Võrno (* 1969), TV presenter and fashion designer
• Moonika Aava (* 1979), javelin thrower
• Jouko Hein (* 1980), ski jumper
• Baruto Kaito (* 1984), sumo wrestler

Web links

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

Wikisource: Wesenberg in the Topographia Electoratus Brandenburgici et Ducatus Pomeraniae (Matthäus Merian)  - sources and full texts

• Rakvere city website
• Description and pictures from Rakvere estlandia.de

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Statistics Estonia: Population by sex, age and place of residence after the 2017 administrative reform, 1 January. Retrieved February 17, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from August 21, 2012 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. 
3. ↑ http://www.rakgym.edu.ee/
4. ↑ http://www.estoniantheatre.info/eng/theatre_in_estonia/theatres/Rakvere_Theatre.theatre_id-11
5. ↑ Rakvere website , accessed May 23, 2017