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Orsha (Belarusian: О́рша, Russian: О́рша, Polish: Orsza); is a city in Belarus in Vitebsk voblast on the fork of the Dnieper (Belarusian: Dniapro) and Arshytsa rivers.

Facts

• Location:
• Population: 125,000 (est. 2004)
• Phone code: +375 216
• Postal codes: 211030, 211381 – 211394, 211396 – 211398

History

Orsha was first mentioned in 1067, making it one of the oldest towns in Belarus.

In 1320, Orsha became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

In 1398-1407 Orsha castle was built.

In 1555, Mikołaj "Czarny" Radziwiłł founded a Calvinist (Protestant) order in Orsha, one of the first on Belarusian lands. In the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries Orsha was a notable religious centre, with dozens of Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic churches and orders. The town was also home to a large Jewish population.

Orsha was granted the Magdeburg Rights in 1620.

In 1630, S. Sobal opened the first printing house at the Kuciejna monastery, which became a well-known center of Cyrillic-alphabet publishing.

The famous Battle of Orsha occurred September 8 1514. Armies from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, half of which were Litvins (Belarusians or Ruthenians from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania), defeated the Russian army. The battle is regarded as a symbol of Belarusian national revival by Belarusian nationalists, but its significance is being suppressed by the Belarusian authorities of Alexander Lukashenka .

The town was damaged during the Russo-Polish War (1654-1667), which was a disaster for Lithuania. During First Polish partition the city was taken over by the Russian Empire in 1772, and became part of the Mogilyov Gubernia. Under Russian rule, it was stripped from its Magdeburg Rights in 1776 and went into cultural and economic decline. The population dropped sharply to just about 2,000 inhabitants. The city symbol in 1781 was changed to one which included the symbol of the Russian empire and five arrows.

In 1812, the city was badly burned during Napoleon's invasion.

During the First World War, the city was occupied by German forces in February–October 1918. From February 2, 1919, Orsha became a part of Homyel region (Vitebsk region, 1920) of Soviet Russia. After the formation of the Soviet Union, it was transferred to the Byelorussian SSR in 1924.

The population before World War II was about 37,000. The city was occupied by Germany on July 16, 1941. The occupiers founded several concentration camps in the city, where an estimated 19,000 people were killed.

The legendary Katyusha multiple rocket launcher was used here for the first time by Soviet forces on July 14, 1941.

The Soviets encouraged and co-ordinated undercover anti-fascist resistance groups, and one of the most famous was a partisan brigade under the command of Kanstantsin Zaslonau (Konstantin Zaslonov), operating from the Orsha train depot. His group planted ninety-three bombs on German trains in just three months. After March of 1942, he went in hiding in the forests, where he and his group continued guerilla warfare. He was killed on November 14, 1942.

Soviet troops liberated Orsha on June 27, 1944.

Population change

• 16th-17th century: est. 5,000
• 1776 (after Russian occupation): less than 2,000
• 1939: 37,000
• 1970: 100,000
• 2004: 125,000

Transportation

Orsha became an important transportation center after the construction of a Dnieper River port. The coming of railway lines in the second half of the nineteenth century greatly contributed to the city growth:

• 1871: Moscow–Minsk–Brest
• 1902: Zhlobin–Mogilev–Vitebsk
• 1923: Orsha-Kryčaŭ
• 1927: Orsha-Lepel

Today, Orsha is a major railway node where the Minsk–Moscow crosses the northern Viciebsk line, which branches south to Mogilev and Kryčaŭ. All trains from Moscow and Saint-Petersburg bound for Western Europe pass through Orsha.

The city is also a junction of the important motorways: The M1 (E30) Moscow-Brest and the M8/M20 (E95) Saint Petersburg - Odessa.

Health problems

Recently, a high rate of oncological diseases attracted attention to this city. Before 1987 there were less than 100 new cancer patients registered each year. Since then the number grew five-fold, with more than 500 new patients registered per year as of 2004. The biggest growth was registered in 2003–04 (178%). This was widely reported in independent media, but Belarusian officials are silent about the alarming health situation and possible reasons for this high cancer rate. Two possible factors mentioned in the independent media are old Soviet military installations in Orsha, and the Chernobyl disaster.

Famous people from Orsha

• Uładzimir Karatkievič, Belarusian writer
• Lev Vygotsky, psychologist
• Mikhail Marynich, opposition politician, who was imprisoned in Orsha
• Igor Zhelezovsky (Ihar Zhalezouski), Olympic medalist speed skater
• Dmitriy Snezhko (Dzmitry Sniazhko), Esperanto activist, author of the first Belarusian-Esperanto dictionary
• Kanstantsin Zaslonau (Konstantin Zaslonov), Soviet partisan (there is a monument of Zaslonau in Orsha)
• Sergei Kolevatykh, artist
• Paul Phillip Levertoff (born Feivel Levertoff), pioneering Hebrew-Christian scholar of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century
• Abraham Dob Baer Ben Solomon, rabbi in Orsha in the second half of the eighteenth century
• Francis Dzierozynski, Polish pioneer Jesuit in America http://www.polishroots.org/paha/polish_jesuit.htm
• Piotra Holub (Golub Petr Semionovich) (1913-1953), artist, author of many well-known Soviet propaganda posters, such as "болтун находка для шпиона" and many othershttp://www.plakaty.ru/authors?id=542&sort=lname;
• Nathan Zarkhi (1900-1935), Soviet playwright and film writer (profile on IMDB);
• Boris Laskin (1914-1983), Soviet writer and poet, author of many Soviet propaganda hit songs ("Броня крепка, и танки наши быстры!", "Три танкиста, три веселых друга...", "Помирать нам рановато - есть у нас еще дома дела");
• Boris Zakharchenya (1928-2005), physicist, academician, a member of the praesidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, specialist in optics and spectroscopy;
• Frida Vigdorova, Soviet writer and journalist, famous for writing "White book" after Joseph Brodsky trial, in support of human rights in USSR ();

External links

• Coat of Arms (GIF file)
• Photos on Radzima.org
• Map of Orsha
• Memories from a childhood in Orsha
• Jewish Encyclopedia

1514 Belarusian Ridge Beshankovichy Chelyadnins Drut River Filon Kmita Fourth Army (Germany) Front Mission 3 Institut Kultury (Minsk Metro) Johannes Pääsuke

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