Rezekne

Related Category: CIS and Baltic Political Geography

(rā´zĕknə), Ger. Rositten, city (1992 est. pop. 43,077), E Latvia, on the Rezekne River. It is a rail junction and agricultural market center. Rezekne developed around a castle that was built in 1285 by the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. The city passed to the Polish-Lithuanian state in 1569 and to Russia during the first partition of Poland in 1772. It was incorporated into newly independent Latvia in 1918.