Rezekne - City of Latvia

Rezekne is a city in the Latgale region of eastern Latvia, 242 km east of Riga. It has a population of 36,646 .

Built on seven hills, Rezekne is situated at the intersection of the Moscow-Riga and Saint Petersburg-Warsaw railways.

A Latgalian castle is known to have existed at Rezekne from the 9th to the 13th centuries, until its destruction at the hands of German crusaders of the Livonian Order. The knights built a stone fortress on the site, which is today known as Rezekne castle ruins, to serve as a border post on their eastern frontier.

The name Rezekne was first documented in 1285. The town became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Peace of Jam Zapolski in 1582 during the Livonian War.Rezekne received Magdeburg rights from Poland in the 17th century. It fell to the Russian Empire during the Partitions of Poland.

The first congress of Latgalian Latvians was held in Rezekne in the spring of 1917 during World War I, and following Latvia's declaration of independence in 1918 the city became a cultural centre for the Latgale region. Rezekne was heavily damaged by both Nazi and Soviet armies during World War II; out of a pre-war population of 13,300, only 5,000 people remained in the city at the end of the war.

Rezekne was rebuilt after the war with an emphasis on industrial development and currently has a significant population of Russians.