Petrikov

Petrikov - the administrative center of Petrikov district of the Gomel region is located on the bank of the Pripyat river. The distance to Gomel is 190 km, to Minsk is 290 km. Motorways connecting Petrikov with Gomel, Brest and Mozyr pass through the city. Also in the city operates a ferry across the Pripyat.

According to legend, Petrikov received his name from the name of the Yatvyaz prince, who was baptized and adopted the name of the holy Apostle Peter. According to legend, the events described above took place in the tenth century. The first written mention of Petrikov is dated 1523. At that time the place was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and belonged to the princes of Olelkovich. Prince Yuri Olelkovich on the bank of the Pripyat erected a tall wooden castle, which was destroyed during the Russian-Lithuanian war of 1534-1537. At the end of 1600 Petrikov passed into the possession of Jerome Chodkiewicz. Petrikov belonged to the Khodkevich family up to 1917.

For Petrikov, the XVII century was extremely restless: in 1648-1649. Cossack detachments of Bogdan Khmelnitsky were looted and burned the town, after in 1654-1655. the city suffered during the war of the Commonwealth and Moscow, and in the 1660s. Petrikov was seized by a Cossack uprising. In 1776, the owners of the town, the Khodkevichi, received privileges from the king of the Commonwealth, which gives them the right to hold large fairs in the city twice a year.

As a result of the Second Division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1793, Petrikov became part of the Russian Empire. According to statistics, at the end of the 19th century about 5,500 people lived in the town, there were about 500 yards. During the First World War, from February to December 1916 and from March to December 1918, Petrikov was occupied by German troops. In 1920, during the Soviet-Polish war, the front line between Russian and Polish troops passed near the city. For a while Petrikov was captured by the Poles. After the end of the war and the signing of the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, Petrikov became part of the BSSR. In 1938, the town was officially granted city status.

During the Great Patriotic War, the city was under the Nazi occupation. During the war period, the communist underground functioned in Petrikov. The city was liberated from the Nazis on June 30, 1944 by the troops of the 1st Byelorussian Front and the sailors of the 20th brigade of the river ships of the Ushakov Order of the Dnieper military flotilla. After the war, Petrikov actively recovered and developed. Today it is a modern city in which industrial enterprises, cultural and educational institutions operate.

The cultural heritage of Petrikov is represented mainly by religious buildings - churches and chapels. Three churches have survived in the city: Nicholas Church is a monument of architecture of a retrospective Russian-Byzantine style, built in 1839; Pokrovskaya Church is a monument of wooden architecture built in 1746 and also Voznesenskaya Church built in 1890.

In Petrikov there is the grave of the legendary grandfather Talash is the Belarusian partisan, the national hero of Belarus, the prototype of the hero of the story «Drygva» Y. Kolas. In addition, in the Petrikov district in the homeland of grandfather Talash in the village of Novoselki there is a house-museum. The museum complex consists of two houses: a «small» one, in which Talash and his family lived before the Polish occupation (this house was burned down by the Poles in 1920 and then rebuilt); and the «big» built by Talash and his sons after the civil war. The museum has recreated the interior of a peasant hut of the late XIX - early-XX centuries. The objects of everyday life of that time are represented in the tools. The second part of the exposition tells about the Great Patriotic War and the heroic struggle of local residents against the fascist invaders. The exhibition hall presents personal items, photos of relatives and friends, fellow villagers and comrades of Talash, documents from the Great Patriotic War.

Also in Petrikov there is a regional museum of local lore whose exposition is devoted to the history of the region from the Stone Age to the present day.